Which ignition was worse?

No cold hard facts, just seat of the pants observations through out the years and wild opinions please.

1) Ford Duraspark with blue tab

2) Ford TFi unit

3) GM HEI control unit in distributor

D) 1988 - 1991 Honda/Acura Oki ignition unit in distributor and distributor itself

Runner up/Booby prize from my experience

VW ABA coil/ignition unit  (I replaced the unit that was on the car twice, and after the second unit I bought a used factory unit from a earlier A3 Jetta that came with a large heatsink. That makes the ignition unit on the car older than the car itself.)

Nissan B14 1.6 Distributor  (One factory replacement distributor, one aftermarket distributor in 100,000 miles.)

Or add you own to the list.

Anything with points and condenser were orders of magnitude worse than anything you mentioned.

Noddaz said:

VW ABA coil/ignition unit  (I replaced the unit that was on the car twice, and after the second unit I bought a used factory unit from a earlier A3 Jetta that came with a large heatsink. That makes the ignition unit on the car older than the car itself.)

The larger one was only on the very early cars and was shared with the VR6 and nearly indestructible when used on an ABA. We used to use these as a quick upgrade on turbod cars before we put on better ignition boxes.

The stupid half year Nissan box on the 96.5 hardbody trucks that would randomly die for absolutely no reason at all.

Streetwiseguy said:

Anything with points and condenser were orders of magnitude worse than anything you mentioned.

  The Lucas ignition system on JaguarV12's. 
   The dealerships were charging as much as $1200 to replace it back in the 1990's 

Ha! Ha! Optispark isn't on the list.

Appleseed said:

Ha! Ha! Optispark isn't on the list.

I have had zero experience with these.   It may well belong on the list.

Appleseed said:

Ha! Ha! Optispark isn't on the list.

The problem wasn't OptiSpark, OptiSpark itself was kind of brilliant, the problem was damn leaky water pumps.

I still maintain that the LT1 was an excellent engine doomed by lack of understanding, lack of long-term commitment from GM, and the LS engine being another step better.

And for the time there wasn't much better than the HEI

Any Lucas Opus system on any British car was less reliable than any other system made by anyone, including points. We replaced so many of them as soon as the OEM warrantee expired, and the local dealers were replacing loads of them under warrantee as well. After the first couple of repeat failures we went aftermarket and had happier customers. 

NickD said:

Appleseed said:

Ha! Ha! Optispark isn't on the list.

The problem wasn't OptiSpark, OptiSpark itself was kind of brilliant, the problem was damn leaky water pumps.

I still maintain that the LT1 was an excellent engine doomed by lack of understanding, lack of long-term commitment from GM, and the LS engine being another step better.

Incidentally, Nissan and several other Japanese companies used nearly identical electronics as the Opti from around 1980 to 2000 without too much trouble. These were in more typical distributor locations through.

Peabody said:

And for the time there wasn't much better than the HEI

This. There's a reason that ford engines used HEI setups on ford lower distributors. They're durable, cheap, reliable and good.

EDIT: and I mean afterarket upgrades for ford distributors. Friend had one on a 351W and on his 351C

I do have to agree with that statement  but often the solution was to pick up the Lucas case , turn it over, pop out the GM module, go to NAPA ( or whoever) and grab a mid 70's module to a K1500 ( about $35) and problem solved.   The distributor itself only needs the oil called for to ensure the advance mechanism doesn't lock up.  Sometimes in the 40+ years  since production. The vacuum advance mechanism will crack the rubber and need replacement.  Welsh and Moss usually have it in stock.  

Peabody said:

And for the time there wasn't much better than the HEI

and was used everywhere GM allowed it to be licensed to.

Streetwiseguy said:

Anything with points and condenser were orders of magnitude worse than anything you mentioned.

During the "tweener" years, as F put it recently, some of the Durasparks were ALOT less dependable than points. 
Now I know that a certain duraspark box was better, but that info was not easy to come by at the time. Both retro fits into dent sides, and factory in late '70s early'80s, have left me waiting on a tow truck. 
not saying we should still be using points... I'm not. But your blanket statement, was, simply put, not true, in the era they were out

Appleseed said:

Ha! Ha! Optispark isn't on the list.

Neither is Chrysler's system, which to be fair was usually a ballast resistor.

Also not mentioned: VW's first generation coil on plug.  This may mostly be thr fault of cheap owners not replacing spark plugs until they cause a problem (see also: Ford V8 coil on plug)

bobzilla said:

Peabody said:

And for the time there wasn't much better than the HEI

This. There's a reason that ford engines used HEI setups on ford lower distributors. They're durable, cheap, reliable and good.

EDIT: and I mean afterarket upgrades for ford distributors. Friend had one on a 351W and on his 351C

And you didn't have to disassemble much to get at the mechanical advance.

Points on a Ford were easy but recurving was difficult.  Recurving a GM distributor was easy but the points were difficult.  HEI was the best at everything.

03Panther said:

Streetwiseguy said:

Anything with points and condenser were orders of magnitude worse than anything you mentioned.

During the "tweener" years, as F put it recently, some of the Durasparks were ALOT less dependable than points. 
Now I know that a certain duraspark box was better, but that info was not easy to come by at the time. Both retro fits into dent sides, and factory in late '70s early'80s, have left me waiting on a tow truck. 
not saying we should still be using points... I'm not. But your blanket statement, was, simply put, not true, in the era they were out

Would that be the era when they had .080" plug gaps or something equally crazy?

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I remember HEIs calling for crazy (know 0.70, maybe 0.80) 

I did not like that on gm, never tried it on a ferd. 
And remember. I've never been more than a shade tree mech, on cars, trucks or bikes!

Did put Jacobs IGN. On my 99 dodge, cause that 5.2 was a pig towing. Instructions said start at 0.080, might be able to take spark plug gap to  0.100.  At 0.080 it did run a bit better, but wore out a nice set of plugs in 4000 miles! Called tech. line. He said take your gap back to factory spec. (.040)    Um, then there is no advantage of running your hot ignition! He didn't want to talk anymore 

Streetwiseguy said:

Anything with points and condenser were orders of magnitude worse than anything you mentioned.

But they can be fixed on the side of the road with only a screwdriver and a business card.  

spitfirebill said:

Streetwiseguy said:

Anything with points and condenser were orders of magnitude worse than anything you mentioned.

But they have to be fixed on the side of the road with only a screwdriver and a business card.  

Fixed.

Streetwiseguy said:

spitfirebill said:

Streetwiseguy said:

Anything with points and condenser were orders of magnitude worse than anything you mentioned.

But they have to be fixed on the side of the road with only a screwdriver and a business card.  

Fixed.

Give it a few weeks, you'll have to fix it again.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

 Pete, you are wrong. The only time I've adjusted the points on either my Jaguars or MG has been in the garage. 
       20 plus races 50,000 miles of cross country or local road trips   And it doesn't happen.  
     Yes back in the day people who weren't savy couldn't get reliability. And so there they were on the side of the road.  
  Back in the late 80's- 90's even early 2000's with some cars the EFI would cause car fires.  My GMC S15  Blazer  burned to the ground. And you'd see the burn marks from plenty others. Fire fighters even called them Car-B-Ques.  They were so common.  
     Untrained mechanics?  Bad parts?  Cost engineering at its most brutal truth? 
      Whatever.  No car is immune from problems.  Even the worst cars could be made reliable with attention to details.  
      All summer long there are old Ford Model T's and A's  coming out to the lake.  I've never seen one go home on flatbed.  
  Yet they weren't exactly trouble free originally.  
     The Japanese, German, American car dealers all have service departments.  They are all busy.  In fact the service department of every dealer makes more money on repairing cars than they ever do selling cars. 
 

I have to agree with French here.  I have done many miles on points cars, and never had any issues.  If I did, the fix or adjustment would be pretty easy (for anyone with the basic knowledge / skill / tools).  The only ignition issue I have had was a failed ignition module on an 80's car that resulted in a tow.

I suspect the reputation that points have has more to do with lack of maintenance and people who had no ability to fix them themselves.  Of course, once you get into higher energy systems and high rpm engines, points will be a source of issues in general.  Complaining about points in non-performance cars is a bit like complaining how oil makes cars blow up (when you ignore the whole "changing it" thing).

In the 30+ years I've owned my Spitfire I have only had to "fix" it once in regards to points or condenser.  And that episode didn't leave me by the side of the road.