The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot '60-'66 Trucks Electronic ignition

I'm thinking of converting my stock points distributor over to electronic. Anyone have experience with this or know of someone that does. I've have seen a conversion kit from Petronix and noticed one today on Ebay from Standard Motor Products. For a '65 GMC with the 305 V-6. This would be alot simpler than the Buick distributor conversion on Jolly's website.

Petronics is real good. I have never used one on a V-6 Gimmy but on straight 6 & v-8 they work good & I never had a problem with one.

PerTronix 1162A part according to Summit Racing. Great post! I did not know they had one for the big block V6.

i used the petronix kit in the gmc v6, it worked great, then i took it out and did the jolly conversion. that also worked great. so i put the petronix in my 66 292 motor. works great in that truck also.

I used a petronix kit on my 327 corvette, was easy to put in and works great, never had any problems with it

Thanks for all the responses. Petronix it is!

KWF,

I made the exact switch, never regretted it yet.

I am still running points....

There used to be a thread here titled "Pertronix failed again!! Any suggestions?"

It convinced me to stay with the old school points and condenser.

I had terrible experience with pertronix, it failed in my mustang, and the only time in 30 years my truck failed to get me home was after I spent $130 UPGRADING my ignition. I can mess with points for the rest of my life and never equal the misery of that windy rainy day. I asked the question flat out on this very forum, if anyone else had poor experiences with pertronix, I had 10 replies, 4 were of the negative variety, that along with my 2 negative experiences is 6 out of 12, not a real good track record in my opinion. On a couple of other forums the response is about 40-50% dissatisfaction rate as well.

give the petronix a try. but keep a set of points in the glove box just in case it fails, or go with a later electronic distributor. just a suggestion.

You don't say what engine you are referring to, but why not GM's HEI? it's a bolt in on '63 and later and a simple conversion on a 235.

Best wishes,

Les

your right .forgot to mention the motor. the chevy 292 . get a later model distributor. it will work just fine.

The later HEI will work find in the 292 with one gotcha. Since the 292 block is taller one of the cap hold tabs on the distributor body will bang the side cover. You may have to the distributor shaft a tooth or two to get the advance you want. The HEI was designed for better emission control, better spark. In addition over the years it also lost both mechanical, and vacuum advance, still better starting than points. The are instructions on the net on how to DIY re-curving.

Larry

@LGriffin; I must respectfully disagree! The bore angle in the block is the same, therefore the clearance is the same. I had zero problems dropping a 1976 HEI from a 250 into a friends 1966 292 in his work truck. He got the distributor across the counter at a local salvage yard for $20 obviously used. The vacuum advance was marked "10", which I took to mean 10 degrees advance.
We hosed it off with canned carb cleaner and dropped it in. I changed the wire and set the timing at 8 degrees and we went for a test drive. Everything was fine and the engine was smoother. It is possible that you have the side covers reversed front to rear or early covers as the front cover is clearanced for the big cap after 1974. All I know is I had NO trouble.

Best wishes,

Les

Guess I'll have to find some later side covers. All of mine are pre 72. Oops

Larry