Jon answered the coil question. "High" volt coils are a scam generally.
The Pertronix story is a long painful story. Failures, bad PR, bad MFG techniques, changes in instructions and no testing before marketing the original. Just that is worked. No stress, heat vibration, mechanical or electrical stress tests, etc. That was left up to the customer and they improved upon reports. Negative "Reports" that spread thru out all the automotive and boat world. They just didn't know how to run a company in my opinion.
Most stories and failures are from ignitor original, I and II. Those may now be improved. Pertronix did not explain ballast resistor or no ballast resistor very well. Tech calls got different answers. Their units got under ohmed and over ohmed. They sell 3 ohm and 1.5 ohm coils. Users have installed units wrong. User distributors were worn. Pertronix said sold copper plug wires OK, now carbon only. Initially the strong magnets were "glued" on and ripped off, then they were potted in.
The price is up to par with any other consumer product. Some components are bought in bulk at a low Chinese price. You can not figure out the total cost due to unknown component prices, labor costs including benefits, warehouse and distribution costs/shipping, business overhead, packaging, advertising/marketing costs....on and on. Too many SKUs possibly. So $110 may or may not be in a person's budget. It all boils down to if the thing works. I believe the Pertronix III is OK.
The whole idea to consider switching from points to Pertronix is reliability. There are lot's of good and bad reviews. Many DO NOT specify which era of Pertronix, so you can't analyze the data. The warranty must be considered.
I used to say that the Delco Langdon distributor was the best bet. I don't know what they are offering today.
I don't see many complaints about Pertronix III units. But the blogosphere is a tricky Galaxy. Lots of complaints about points reliability and condenser reliability. JonG has some of that fixed with his condenser.
Many of the well known Distributors now sell Pertronix for what that is worth.
Summit: Warranty
PerTronix Flame-Thrower coils and industrial distributors are under a 90-day warranty against defects. Digital rev limiters, Second Strike products, billet distributors, and HEI products are under a 1-year warranty against defects. Ignitor and Ignitor II products are under a 30-month (2.5-year) warranty against defects. Flame-Thrower spark plug wires are under a limited lifetime warranty against defects.
Speedway:
InstructionsDo your own research to be sure.
