I have a distributor with points on my A15 engine and it works fine, but i'm getting an original Electronic Distributor that came from an A14 engine at a good price. I'm pretty sure that it will work in my A15, but I'm not sure of the benefits that an Electronic Distributor has, can you guys enlighten me

It has two purposes...

1) The high energy spark delivered by the H/E coil recommended for an Electronic Dizzy will produce a better fuel burn rate at the time of combustion. therefore slightly more HP You cant run a high energy coil with points as it would arc before the points close causing pitting of the points and loss of contact area and eventual high resistance and burnout of the points.

2) The lack of mechanical points means that an engine capable of revving at high revs would be able to receive spark more cleanly and efficiently from an Elect Dizzy as it eliminates point bounce at high revs...

Also you no longer need to set or replace the points every 6 months

There are additional benefits, including:
- Dwell can be longer, for better spark (with or without high energy coil)
- More consistent timing (no rub blocke to wear out)
- Reduced timing variation as distributor shaft bearing wears

See our Electronic Ignition articles.




Datsun 1200 Thought of the Day

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huh? who replaces their points once every six months? ive never even looked at mine before and ive had the car over a year????

Thats what you do, when you run out of things to do right? Or is that just me?

Quote: Maybee it's time you did.
The rubbing block on the points wears in normal service, allowing the points to lose their set gap & dwell angle. The points progressively open later & later, & this means that the timing progerssively retards. Thats not good for anything.

In the years before electronic ignitions, the road service organisation most common breakdown fault, by a huge margin, was points that had closed up due to people being either too lazy, or too stupid, to service their vehicle properly.
Frequently, these people complained about vehicle unreliability. That still cracks me up.

As the saying goes " If it ain't broke, don't fix it"
I service an Old Chook's 1200 and havent changed the points since I put the A14 in about 3yrs ago and Gran does on average 8000kms a year. Every service I check the dwell and she's always good.
At the same time my old 1200 needed them every service.
Its luck of the draw, sometimes you get a really good Condenser and it does its job perfectly. A simple dab of grease helps prevent the rubbing block from wearing.

Quote: This is a perfect illustration of my point. You "CHECKED" them at the service interval & took the necessary action based on what you found. It's not that they were not changed that i wrote about, but that they had been left, unchecked for the whole year. Knowledge is power. In this case, it might be horsepower.
This is the point that i unclearly made in the sentence that ended with "service their vehicle properly"

Very true. Keyword " Maintenance"

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As a perfect example to this, " One drives One's car, One notices changes in running of car"
I am by no means special but I noticed in my 1200 when power dropped off and starting became poor.
Key feature of bad points - car runs like a bucket of ####. I am sure many others notice this also