i got a reman distrib from napa today, i went from a points based petronix upgraded stock dist to a new plain eletronin dist.
two wire colors on new dist were back and an off orange kinda weird color, so the black went to negitive coil side, other went to pos side. i used my old cap and rotor cuz if u remove the inner sleeve on the rotor it fits onto the new dist.

no spark... even with timing off, even with coil wires flipped. i got 12v at dist wire goin in, and multi meter beeps checkin ground side.
do i need to remove ballast? what am i missing? or should i just go return the damn thing for a diff one?


oh, and i swapped back the old one and it fired right up.

im workin wit a 72 valiant midyear by the way... the dood could only look one up fpr a 73 if that matters

If I'm understanding you correctly, you replaced only the distributor, and didn't add the electronic control unit or the wiring that connects the distributor, the coil, the ballast resistor, and the ECU. The distributor won't do anything without an ECU.

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well i figure cuz it still has the reluctor as the trigger i wouldnt need much else. are you talkin about an ignition mod, like the gm hei?

The Pertronix module switches the coil on and off like the points do. The pickup coil and reluctor only signal an ignition module when it's time to turn the coil current off. You need an ignition module to do the coil current switching.

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Joshua

The reluctor is simply a trigger, not a switching circuit. It puts out a signal that other electronics can read and use to switch the power to the coil on and off.
Precisely. You'd need either the rest of the factory Mopar setup or a GM 4 pin HEI module (or if you wanted to get fancy, an MSD box or similar aftermarket thing).

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"Mad Scientist" Matt Cramer
'66 Dart - turbocharged 225
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Dank10fenny,

If I am understanding you right you bought the Pertronix upgrade from points that is self contained. I have installed them on a few cars, and the unit that goes in the distributor is all you need. Sounds like you may have gotten a faulty unit. We did once and I returned for another and it worked fine. I just followed the instructions. It needs a full 12 volts to work, so no resistors.

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Aggressive Ted

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naw ted, i was used to my two wire petronix kit that worked, and wasnt even thinkin about dwell i needed... sigh, gettin a lil black box today

I have done this conversion personally. Not only do you need the distributor, but you need the electronic box too. If you wish I will post pictures for you.

Also, if you turn the new distributor upside down you will see a adjustment bolt, Make sure it is set in the same position as your old one!!