# electronic ignition conversion 1970 GTO



## captainfish1951 (Mar 2, 2014)

Am interested in converting Delco points dizzy and am having a hard time deciding which one to use. Wondering if anybody has used the unit advertised in PerformanceYears as "blowing away Petronix" the GME29? Main concerns are making sure hood tach continues to work,not eliminating the resistance wire and supposedly if I ever had a dead battery and needed a jump would the unit get fried. Frustating to me that the advertising is so vague and I figured some of you have been down this road already. Thanks for any help you can provide,Paul


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## geeteeohguy (Feb 2, 2008)

Some of the guys who have done this will chime in. You use the term 'blowing away Petronix'.....which leads me to believe you anticipate performance gains with an HEI conversion. Not true. There are no performance gains to be had with HEI over the stock ignition system, only lack of maintenance. Points need replacing every 15,000 miles, while HEI is virtually maint. free. I like points in my cars, as it's 'part of the musclecar experience" and they are more reliable than HEI (no 'brain' to burn out and no magnetic pickup to fail). BTDT many times.


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## MAP53 (Nov 10, 2013)

I was going to, and still might convert my 69. I have used Pertronix for years in my Mustangs without a snag, I just converted the 73 Corvette I am building too. I figured I would do the GTO this winter when I pull the engine out. For now I decided to go ahead and change the points for this summer. I have to say it's been awhile since I installed a set of points and tuned them in with a dwel meter, as soon as I flipped up the metal window it brought back memories of the old days, and when you adjust them you can actually feel something happen, I kind of dig it. So for now anyway I'm sticking with the points. Besides when the EMP bomb goes off and the aliens start chasing us around, my trusty old goat will still be chugging along (maybe):jawDrop:


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## 05GTO (Oct 6, 2004)

captainfish1951 said:


> not eliminating the resistance wire and supposedly if I ever had a dead battery and needed a jump would the unit get fried.


The resistor wire was used to prevent the points from being burnt while running the car, during the start cycle the starter supplies full voltage to the coil in parallel to the resistor wire. If you go electronic there is no need to use the resistor wire.


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## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

I second the motion. Test after test after test has shown that there are no performance gains - none - zip - zero - nada from switching over to electronic ignition in engines that live in the rpm ranges where street Pontiacs tend to be "happy". An ignition system can either light the fire or it can't. There's not really any such thing as lighting it "so much better it'll shave 10ths off your e.t.". True, a points system is going to have trouble above 6000 rpm, but so is a stock HEI, Pertronix, or any system that uses a single primary voltage "cut off" to trigger a secondary discharge voltage in a coil. This is because there's just not enough time between pulses to build a good "saturation" in the coil. Keeping things going much beyond 6000 rpm requires some sort of capacitive discharge system. 

Bear


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