From: yang@resmel.bhp.com.au (Sam Yang)
Subject: Re: Converting to electronic ignition
Summary: Australia, USA
Keywords: air-points, electronic ignition, convertion, Bosch, Piranha
Organization: BHP Research - Melbourne Laboratories, AUSTRALIA
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 06:25:37 GMT

In article <BtoK9E.Lwy@resmel.bhp.com.au>, yang@resmel.bhp.com.au (Sam Yang) writes:
> 
> Hello Friends,
> 
> This is an enquiry about converting a points ignition system into an
> electronic one for a Toyota Corolla 10/1983 KE70 Wagon. The car has
> a 1.3L 4 cylinder engine (4KC). The similar article was posted 7 hours
> ago but it did not appear in the net.
> 
> I drive about 80km/day to work. One of the problem with the car is that
> it eat contact points too quickly -- one in about half a year. The


Hello Friends,

Thanks for all those who replied to my original post. The summary 
together with new questions are the following:

[1] Several people indicated that cars manufactured after 70's in US all
use electronic ignition. However, I found many (maybe most?) cars in OZ
before 85(?) still use contact points ignition. Does anyone has an 
explanation to this? One thing I could think of is that OZ is not cold
enough in winter to cause icing problem for contact points, so it is not
necessary to use electronic ignition and that the MAIN advantage of the
electronic ignition over the conventional contact points is that the EI
works better in cold winter.

[2] Everybody expressed that the EI is superior to the contact points
ignition. Does the contact points ignition has anything better than the EI?

[3] In my original post, I said that the points in my car were burnt in
6 months of time. Several replied indicated that this is too short. They
suggested me to check the capacitor and the coil, etc.. Actually, the
points were badly pitted and the color of the contact surface was 
black/blue. I checked the capacitor using a multi-meter resistance range.
The needle moved a bit and returned to infinite resistance reading. From
my knowledge of electronics, there was nothing wrong with the capacitor.
Do you know how to test the coil? The ballast resistor was changed 
several month ago on the road side by the RACV mobile repairer and I am
not sure if they put the right resistor or not. Do you know the 
specifications of the ballast resistor for a 4KC engine?

[4] I did a carburetter job about a year ago because the engine did not
deliver much power in high throttle. Press the accelerator pedal further
down more than about half way will not give noticeable power increase
(even decrease). When the engine rev is higher than ~3500rev/minute,
press accelerator more than half way only produce a loud exhaust noise
but not power increase. The problem went away (at least for the exhaust
noise) after I increased the carburetter petrol level for about 
1.5mm ~2mm (by adjusting the float level).  Does the above suggest a
poor ignition? My reasoning is based on the fact that it need a higher 
voltage to fire a leaner and/or more compressed mixture and that the 
ignition voltage drops when engine rev increases (for the conventional 
contact points ignition system). 

All your comments would be appreciated.

Sam
Newsgroups: rec.autos.tech