I'm getting ready to purchase an engine compartment harness for my 70 Duster (340 motor/auto) and I'm still not sure if I should run the electronic ignition or standard points style distributor. Thoughts?

I hate change but I went away from points.I ran a Mallory dula point till about 15 years ago.You can run the points dist with Petronix and look almost stock.Not a big deal to go with factory dist and box unless its a 100 point resto.Rocky

If you are going to drive the car . . . I would go with the electronic ignition harness. I did that with my 70 Sport Satellite . . .although I did lengthen the ignition harness, so I could mount the control box under the battery. That way you don't see it . . .

You posing the Q tells me originality ain't an issue. Was the '70 originally a points app? (I'm assuming yes per the Q). I'd likely go electronic with a regular 70's electronic dist and a good American made ECU (not an orange box) and an E coil. An HEI can mount under the dist with the tailor made ($$$) alum plate or (easily) make your own. Use some Radio Shack heat sink paste with it. this would keep the point based firewall uncluttered with the addition of an ECU. For the points app (or going with Pertronix its needed) AZ has rebuilt dists for cheap. The P system needs minimal bushing play & has its own caveats, nothing too serious, IE iirc the P 1 cannot use solid core plug wires & I'd get the P II if I was going that route

Solid core plug wires belong on antique tractors. If they can or cannot be used is no issue as they are not as good as the mag core wires.

I'd say other than that Blazin' Bob is on the right track. The electronic ignition is hands down the way to go unless you are restoring. The later model electronic distributor with the Delco HEI is about as simple as you can get. I'd suggest a solid coil like the one used with the Ford TFI ignition. They are good, can be mounted in any orientation and can be had really cheap. As this is stockish stuff you can get replacements if the need arises.

The other point is to customize your ignition advance curve. There are real gains to be made there. They mostly come in the midrange, but that's where you drive anyway.

R.

I wanted to stay more original for the Duster. However, I have been receiving some feedback about mounting an electronic ignition under the battery tray. I'm planning to work with Bill Evans on customizing the harness, if I go the electronic ignition route under the battery tray. However, if those with the stock setup state there are no issues, then I will just order the stock harness setup with no wire harness takeout going down under the battery tray.

Converting to the Mopar standard electronic ignition has been standard operating procedure since 1973, when it first came out (actually was an option in 1972 on some models), for me. I felt no need to hide the ECU. I used that until the electronic fuel injection became a viable option, about 10 years ago. Gene

I gotta say like most all other Mopar guys, I've followed the Mopar tech advice and installed electronic conversions (Mopar Performance, MSD, Accel, and Mallory) on my cars. I still own the ones with Mopar Performance(2 cars), MSD, and Mallory. The Mopar Performance Orange box on my Roadrunner has left me stranded twice in 20 years! Now, I keep one in the trunk of the car; not a low-cost spare to keep on hand. The others don't get driven enough to see a fail rate. These cars are always in a climate controlled garage when not being driven, for record purposes.

Just over 4 years ago, I dragged a non-op 63 Fury home from the Lake LA/high desert. The contacts on the points were gone. As in GONE! There was nothing left other than the point body assembly on either side, so those got replaced. Other than a set of points and points only, I'm running the same plugs, wires, cap, rotor, coil, and condenser from the day I dragged it home. It runs great! Since getting it road worthy again in late 2013, I've put over 5000 miles on it. I left this car this way just to see how much hype might be behind the whole electronic ignition movement. Is a point ignition really THAT unreliable? Time and driving will continue to tell. I've not touched anything under that distributor cap since I installed those points and got the thing running. I haven't even put the timing light on it. I have revived friend's cars with point ignitions and no spark simply by dragging 600 grit sandpaper between the contacts and reinstalling the cap. They are still running on those points today.

I know, I know. I'm weird and against the masses here. This is just information to consider. I'm not saying put in a point ignition and I'm certainly NOT putting the point ignitions back in my other cars. But, I'm going to leave this one alone and keep running it until I see/feel a degradation in performance that warrants a look-see into a potential ignition problem. Until then, I've got that extra set of points I paid $2.90 for, and a 3/16" blade screwdriver, in the glovebox just in case.

Oh yeah. One more thing. My 63 Fury More Door Hardtop sits outside. Year round. In the rain. It has never failed to start. It rained like 5 inches in the last 3 days here. The car starts and runs.

Wheaton, you are congratulated for going against the masses!

I have converted all my cars back to points. I have been stranded too many times by failed electronic ignition parts. Points just work. Buy GOOD points, make sure everything is right in the distributor
and drive on! Just replace them before they are gone, like on that car you drug home. They probably drove it until it quit running. That will take many miles, like 25,000!

Do the HEI conversion. My '67 Coronet had an orange box ignition and it started okay when it was cold but would not start when it was warm. I had low voltage to the coil when hot and also a fuel boiling/flooding issue. I swapped over to an HEI and E coil and no more hot starting issues. I've since resolved the fuel boiling issue after the conversion and it's even better. Cold starting is a lot better as well. The designed2drive HEI module mount attaches it under the distributor, very clean look, and it's all of $25, hardly $$$ and well worth it. You don't need the Mopar ECU either or ballast resistor and can use a stock Mopar electronic ignition distributor. The total conversion was around $100 all in.

I agree there's nothing wrong with points. To do a comparison , I was drag racing a pretty stock 440 years ago with a Mallory Double Life dual point distributor. It was so old it was really hard to find points/rotor for it. My buddy talked me into buying a MSD 6-AL box and a MSD billet distributor, not that my engine was running bad, actually it ran fine. So I spent the money and the results were not even noticeable , not even a hundredth of a second difference in ET.. So , in my case I wasted money going to electronics with that engine. Now that being said , now with more cubes, more compression, more RPM's and of course horse power I think the electronics probably work better.

I have a points dist & a new set of points just collecting dust. sometime I'm gonna try it & set the gap at .010" for the longest dwell (.008" if it will start/run) & see how it acts. small gap=longest dwell (saturation time/most power)=shortest life (contacts are together for longer time to arc/burn/wear out): best for performance. All of that inversely proportional. For Grandmas' DD, widest gap (at least .017" for the longest life). EDIT IIRC the dwell on electronic ign (MP) is 42 (dist) deg ?? 45 is an eighth of a (dist) turn so that or a micro second less would be the max possible (dwell time). MORE EDIT for a serious points afficionado get a copy of the Jacobs' ign bible. 3/4 of that thing is devoted to points!

Well, it's great to know I'm not the 'Lone Weirdo' and I have good company!

I promise I will post when/if this ignition needs any maintenance or adjustment. Hopefully, I'll be able to find this string when it happens.

My Cuda still runs points

The only thing wrong with points is the slant six, real PITA to adjust them then.

Mopar electronic ign for over 20 years, and 20,000 miles...

No issues...



(Leaning tower of power, I used to pull the distributor to set the points...)

Yeah, I do that too, but it's a PITA anyway.

Nothing wrong with a good ole points distributor, nothing at all. Its all we had back then, and our cars ran fine. Whats wrong with pulling a little maintenance now & then & wrenching on your car from time to time, or changing a set of points,(big deal). That's part of the fun of owning one of these old muscle cars. I suppose the next thing some of you guys will want is a oil you never have to change. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to persuade the OP one way or another into points or electronic, its his car & his choice. I just don't see what all the hype is over changing to electronic ignition. I love a points distributor.

I've been running the MP electronic ignition kit for close to 20 years, car ran great, found an original '71 3438577 Prestolite cast iron dual point distributor years ago for my car, getting ready to restore that to OE with nos parts including nos solenoid - should be just fine for what I use the car for - just throw a few more spare parts in the trunk for emergencies should the need arise - that's hot rodding!

I did time with a lot of point distributors. The old factory dual point units were good. Some of the single point setups could be dialed in very well.

The reality is, the dwell on a set of points changes constantly. Higher RPM make it worse, and point bounce also comes into play. The point rubbing block wears down, and changes the dwell (reduces dwell angle or the degrees the points are open) as well. As the dwell angle reduces, the timing retards. The points also become pitted and give inconsistent dwell resulting in inconsistent spark timing. The problem is, with a point dist, the change is usually carried out over several months and is often unnoticeable by the driver.

The two current issues with a points dist are:
1) The points dist are aging or of are new questionable quality. Most have inconsistent cam lobe high point locations. Old dist find the lobes wore off, often at varying degrees per specific cam lobe, and new ones may never have been correct in the beginning. If the cam lobes are not consistent in the degrees of separation, the cylinders are not consistent in the degrees of timing each cylinder is firing. You probably won't feel a couple degrees of difference in cylinder timing, but it can show up in the power curve. The issue is, with a point dist, the thing that determines cylinder firing is a wear part.
2) Points availability isn't was it was in the heyday of points distributors. Back then, high quality points were available from several sources. Today the number of companies actually making points is pretty limited, and the quality is questionable.

Most of the short comings of dealing with points can be corrected with with a watchful eye and continual tinkering using the highest quality parts available today, if that is how you want to spend your time with your Mopar. I prefer to drive mine, so its electronic ignition for me. Gene

If its a factory / stock /showroom / showcar, go with the stock ignition, if its a car you drive and may not be 100% stock, then run electronic ignition. I like the mallory unilite and the msd pro billets, but there are less espensive, and easier to install units out there that look more like stock, like the pertronics, msd rtr, etc..

I like the rev limiter options on the electronic ignitions..