Going back to Chrysler ignition

Here we go again.

Here's some of the issues with the factory ignition (and distributor)

- Recurving the distributor if you need a good amount of advance at idle means welding and filing the advance slots, or one of those silly add on plates. Both are a PITA.
- I haven't encountered an "orange box" from ANY manufacturer in the last decade plus that didn't break up over about 4,500 rpm, and I've tried more than a few. The "chrome" boxes seem better, but some of those aren't great either. Mopar ignition box quality sucks.
- A Mopar ignition box can **** the bed just as easily as any electronic ignition, and has the added bonus of needing a ballast resistor that can also **** the bed at a moments notice

I have Pertronix "plug and play" distributors in my Duster, Challenger, and my '71 F100. Dialing in the advance curves is easy and everything you need comes with it. There's only two wires and there's no ballast resistor. Yes, if the Pertronix unit ***** the bed you're SOL unless you get another one, but that's absolutely no different than a Mopar ignition box and I would wager your odds of finding a Pertronix unit on the shelf at a local parts shop is, at the very least, no worse than your odds of finding a mopar ignition box. The nice thing about buying the Pertronix ready to run distributors is that regardless of make all the v8 ones at any rate use the same ignition module. So, the FE 390 in my '71 F100 has the same ignition module as my Duster's 340, my Challengers old 318, or the 440 that will probably be in it next. So I can have one spare pertronix unit for all of them (that's only true if you use the Pertronix "plug and play" distributor, not just a conversion unit in a factory distributor).

Do I believe the Pertronix puts out better spark or makes more power or any of that nonsense? No. But the "plug and play" distributors are easier to tune/recurve, there's no wire harness that has to go in to use them, and I've only had one go dead in the last decade and that was probably my fault because I left a key on for too long while I was troubleshooting something else. I've tossed at least half a dozen mopar ignition boxes for various reasons in a much shorter period of time before going to Pertronix.

Same benefits apply to most of the aftermarket HEI distributors too, I'm definitely not gonna argue that the Pertronix is better than any of those. The ability to tune most the aftermarket distributors is just better than the factory distributor.