Best Ignition Points

[fordrebuilder]

Just wanting a general consensus/input on what everyone believes is the "best" brand for points. I have a cheap set of MasterPro points in my distributor right now and I keep having to adjust them about every 100 miles. A real pain in the ass. I know a lot of people may believe the best route is electronic, but I'd like to stay original as much as I can.

[390FE1972]

You can find NOS Motorcraft points and condensers on e-bay sometimes, they would be the best. The part number for the points is
B8Q1217A (DP12) and the part number for the condenser is C9AZ12300A (DC13A). You might check with your Ford dealership and give them these numbers and there is a chance that they may still carry them.

[cep62]

Standard / Blue Streak used to be good I haven't used points in a while.
Did you grease the rub block on your points.
do you use a dwell meter or a feeler gauge to set them?

[zgerbic]

It might be that you have some poor quality points but some other things can make the dwell change over a short time. The dwell should hold pretty constant for a few thousand miles.

1. Distributor cam is not smooth or the cam does not have grease on it. Rapid wear on the point block will make the point gap change rapidly.

2. Points burning will make the dwell change more or less depending on how the points burn. This is often due to a bad condenser (allowing a lot of sparking) or too low a resistance in the coil circuit. Low resistance means higher currents for the points to handle leading to more point contact burning. High current/low circuit resistance can be caused by a coil with too low a resistance, such as putting in a resistor coil without the resistor, or bypassing the resistance wire that Ford puts between the ignition switch and the coil positive lead.

Some troubleshooting hints:

1. Check the point rubbing block where it touches the cam. May need to clean with solvent, dry and then apply a slight film of white grease. If the cam is slightly rough, it might require some 1000 sandpaper and emery cloth. If the damage is any worse, replace the distributor.

2. Measure the voltage at the positive contact of the coil with the points closed. It should be about 7V to 9V because of the resistance wire to the ignition switch dropping about 3V or so. If it is 12V, then the resistance wire has been bypassed and points will burn out really fast. You can measure the resistance of the coil but because it is so low, there is a high chance of error because of meter lead resistance and poor low ohms readings on many of the less expensive multimeters. If you suspect a problem of too low a resistance, add a coil resistor in series with the power lead to the coil and see if the problem goes away.

3. Remove the cap and open the choke on the carb (to make sure you don't flood the engine). In a really dark room, have someone crank the engine while you watch the points open and close, you should see very little sparking. If you remove the condenser wire, you should see more sparking. Seeing a change in the amount of spark is one way to judge if the condenser is working. The only other way to conclusively check the condenser is to use an engine analyzer and look at the points traces. A good condenser rarely goes bad except from long term extreme heat of extreme age. When people change the condenser at every tune-up, luck of the draw will eventually get them a new bad condenser. New condensers should always be suspect of being bad. I talked to a gentleman that works in a car restoration business on Friday. He told me he just bought 100 new condensers and only 28 were good. My experience is that that is the state of things today.

There are reasons why some of us put electronic ignitions in all our vehicles that came with points. First is that the dwell (and therefore timing), remains constant for decades. Second is the ability to get away from changing parts that may or may not work. Next is that for most electronic ignition systems voltage and coil resistance are seldom a problem. Much less need to wonder if you have an ignition system problem. Most people don't have or have access to an engine analyzer.

[fordrebuilder]

Thanks everyone for your input. A few weeks ago I ordered a set of blue streak points and installed them. Everything has been running pretty good since then. I think one day when I have a spare $100 laying around I may go with the electronic points.