After about 40 miles of driving, the brand new Joe Hunt Distributor cut out on me on the freeway leaving my wife and I stranded for a few hours.When I pulled the distributor out I also noticed it was leaking oil out of the body and there was oil inside the distributor where the module and rotor are located.I havent called Speedway Motors or Joe Hunt yet, been busy swapping it over to the stock points distributor so I can have it on the road for the West Coast Kustoms show next week in Santa Maria,Ca.After researching, I found out that these things are notorious for cutting out.You couldnt pay me enough money to run another one again..
Could not agree with you more. I had the same problem with mine. Joe Hunt told me I had the wrong resister which in turn fried the internal coil. I sent it back and $250 latter I had a new coil and their resistor. Ran a little longer (500) miles then did the same thing. I am done. I would not trust another rebuild. Can't afford the motels (which by the way were cheaper than the distributor).
Guys the problem seems to be the overall design of the unit. The pertronixs module sits on top of a very low resistance ignition coil. The magnetic interference of the coils magnetic field interferes with the control modules function. The fix appears to be just disconnect the ignition coil ( cut the wires) and wire the pertronixs module for a external coil. The vertex style cap can be converted to a external coil wire with a part from vertex etc. ( veretex makes a external coil magneto) Remove the coil wire ( cut off) and install a small bolt thru the terminal ( must be drilled) and wire up the external coil wire. May not be what you had in mind but actually doesnt look that bad.....
Sorry hear of your problem ......I've dynoed a half dozen of these things.....haven't liked one yet...,,,.now if I want the look of a mag....we only use real ones.....
This is a case of module's being used in an environment where they really shouldn't be. The low resistance coil that is quite noisy mounted right next to the module causes all kinds of issues. Bubba's suggestion is really the best solution - get the coil out of the inside of that thing!
I've been thinking of using one of these and after all the bad feedback I've read I think I'll just forget about it. Love the look, but not the hassle. I did run a JH magneto on a big twin Harley for years without a problem, but that was a true magneto. When I rode down the street my neighbors said their TV's got a little snow in the picture. I had a cop tell me to shut down once because it was interfering with his two way radio. Magneto and solid copper wire. Lol. Ken
I had Roger at Joe Hunt convert my Scintilla Vertex magneto from Olds to my Chrysler Hemi. At the time, I was considering one of the then new 'lookalike' ignitions. Naaaahhh... Love my Vertex.
I have gad the magnets loose their charge in mags before too. If you want the look, keep a spare in the car. -Danny
That's a Streetrod part if I ever saw one. Its as fake as a set of discs inside Buick drums. I think whats happening is, that cool Hot Rods are rejecting it... So they will get replaced with a real Magneto, or a distributor that's not pretending to be something cooler than it is.
Ist the whole point of running one to look like a maneto, and not have an external coil? If you are just running it like a points distributor ad it looks like one....... why not save the $$$ and run a points type distributor?
I've been using the petronix conversion in the original distributor for going on 10 years and never a hitch. that doesn't really address your problem, just an FYI.
Sorry to hear of your troubles Marcus, glad I didn't get one for my Y-Block. I have the real thing in the dragtser, that one works great.
I considered one when I started on the engine for my car, but decided against it because there was no vacuum advance, which helps a lot on mpg and drivability on the street in part throttle cruising. Didn't know then about the reliability problems at that time, just thought it looked Cool! Glad I didn't spend the bucks.
I bet if they had put a little thought into shielding this would work pretty good. After all a magneto uses an internal coil and it works pretty good (though there are those that use externals too).
The Jalopy Journal
