OK here's another odd one for Cobra owners who still have points...

[Lou C]

I was getting my old 88 Cobra ready for the season, and had an odd thing happen. The engine started well from winter storage, then starting doing something it never did before. It would gasp and stumble if I ran it with the shift system in neutral, with the handle pulled out all the way. But when I ran it in gear, it ran OK again. It felt as if the ESA was engaging with the shift system in neutral, which didn't make sense. I checked the ESA switches as per the manual and they worked fine. I had not replaced the points and condenser in a while and I had heard that bad points or condenser can cause ESA related troubles. Changed them both and back to normal......

 

[larry1167]

Re: OK here's another odd one for Cobra owners who still have points...

Thank for the information Lou. I still have points on my '87 Cobra. I typically change them every other year, but it's good to know about the correlation between the points and ESA. I have always wanted to change to electronic ignition but have heard it won't work with ESA.

 

[infideltarget]

Re: OK here's another odd one for Cobra owners who still have points...

Thanks Lou! Electronic ignition will work with ESA, but you have to do some modifications first, according to more than one of the resident experts here. I will dig into my archives and find out what exactly, and repost it here. I plan to just keep the points, as it sounds like too much money / trouble to change over.

Found it. Here you go:


http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=464638

 

[larry1167]

Re: OK here's another odd one for Cobra owners who still have points...

Thanks Infadel. I think I will keep my points too. Cheaper that way and if anything goes wrong on the water I will have a chance to fix myself. Old school is good school in that regard.

 

[Lou C]

Re: OK here's another odd one for Cobra owners who still have points...

I've thought about changing to an electronic system but I have found the points to be OK in terms of reliability as long as you change them regularly. If I repower this boat, then I might go with electronic on the new engine, but outside of the maintenance, there is no big disadvantage of points and several advantages (cheap to repair, easy for do it yourselfer). I grew up with cars with points and we usually changed them once every year or 12K miles, same with plugs. The GM distributors with the allen key adjustment (still have the allen key flex adjusting tool in the old toolbox, from 1973 or so) made it so easy to get the dwell exactly right. I usually set the dwell on the lower end of the range (less dwell corresponds to a slightly larger gap) so that when the rubbing block wears, the points stay in spec longer. For example, if the spec is 37-41* of dwell, like for my engine, I'll set it close to 37, that way when it wears it's still in spec....

 

[infideltarget]

Re: OK here's another odd one for Cobra owners who still have points...

I've thought about changing to an electronic system but I have found the points to be OK in terms of reliability as long as you change them regularly. If I repower this boat, then I might go with electronic on the new engine, but outside of the maintenance, there is no big disadvantage of points and several advantages (cheap to repair, easy for do it yourselfer). I grew up with cars with points and we usually changed them once every year or 12K miles, same with plugs. The GM distributors with the allen key adjustment (still have the allen key flex adjusting tool in the old toolbox, from 1973 or so) made it so easy to get the dwell exactly right. I usually set the dwell on the lower end of the range (less dwell corresponds to a slightly larger gap) so that when the rubbing block wears, the points stay in spec longer. For example, if the spec is 37-41* of dwell, like for my engine, I'll set it close to 37, that way when it wears it's still in spec....

Holy crap...I am sooo gonna be in trouble with this. I grew up with electronic stuff, and only caught the waining years of points in some of my older stuff...which promptly got changed to electronic ASAP. I am gonna have to learn how to set dwell and gap all over again.

 

[Joshua Nichols]

Re: OK here's another odd one for Cobra owners who still have points...

Me too brother.. I use to work on tractors.. Sometimes one of those old *** gas ones would come in with point ignition.. Had to dig out the ol dwell meter.. Well I gave it to this guy who had this old Plymouth POS that still had points after I quit fooling with junk that had points.. Bam got my own junk with points.. Now need a new meter to set dwell...:facepalm:

I thought about electronic.. Thought about it hard.. I can change the points for dirt ( can buy a bunch of sets for the price of the electronic set up).. I use to be pretty good at setting them back in the day... Not keeping the ol tub forever.. So the new owner can cuss at them and install electronic if he wants..