PerTronix Ignition Coil Flame-Thrower Oil Filled 40,000 Volts 3.0 Ohm 4-Cylinder/6-Cylinder

Whether it's your Mustang or your mower, engine maintenance is crucial for performance as well as long life. In the case of our Weekend Wrench project car, we've done a lot of upgrades so far, but we still haven't given it a general tune-up. Like everything else on the car instead of simply replacing parts, we're going to use this as an opportunity to upgrade. So today we're going to get rid of the point system and we're going to install this electronic ignition from Pertronix, while we're at it: new plugs, a Pertronix coil, new wires and a fuel filter.

Pertronix offers several versions of the ignitor. This is the Ignitor One. It's designed for milder stock applications, which is perfect for our Weekend Wrench. It installs in place of the points underneath the distributor caps. It gives it a stealth look. The addition of the flame thrower coil and the 7 mm wires should give us plenty of spark for our Weekend Wrench.

For this installation you'll need a flathead screwdriver, a 3/8 ratchet, multiple extensions, 1/4 inch ratchet, 13/16 spark plug socket, 9/16 socket, 3/8 socket, 5/16 socket, wire strippers, wire crimpers, spark plug gapping tool, and anti-seize.

We're going to start with the ignitor install. We've got to remove the distributor cap. We're going to start by taking the air cleaner off to give us a little more room. You'll want to disconnect your battery before getting started with the installation. I'm going to pull just the center off for the coil, pop the two clips, one on the front, one in the back, lift the cap up and put it out of place.

This is a good time to check your cap and rotor for wear. Ours aren't in bad shape, but while we're here we're going to replace those as well. I'll remove our rotor and we'll start removing the original points. Now we're going to disconnect the negative lead from the coil, fish that wire over the distributor and remove our old point system. I'm going to give the plate a quick cleaning before we install the Pertronix. Then we'll start the installation by fishing the wires through the hole in the distributor, put them both through and get the ground in place, and now we can mount our Pertronix.

Make sure you grab your distributor ground. Just want to get it started. We're not going to tighten it down just yet, we have play left in it. Now we're going to set our gap. Now you want to grab the black plastic sleeve for the distributor and the clear plastic feeler gauge to set up the gap. I'm going to slide this over the shaft and turn it, it goes all the way down. Put the feeler gauge between the ignitor and the sleeve, push it until it's touching then tighten it down.

Now we're going to remove the feeler gauge but you do leave the sleeve in place. Now we're going to install our new rotor, and then our new cap. Now we're going to install the coil. We'll start by removing the bracket. Loosen up the bracket, move the connection. We can pull off our coil. Now we're going to remove the original coil from the bracket, install our new Pertronix coil, and tighten it down. Now we're going to reinstall the coil bracket with our new coil.

Now we're going to cut the factory ignition wire so we can install the supplied ring terminal. I'm just going to put a little bit of electrical tape over our connection and take that down to the factory cover, and we're ready to hook up to our coil. Now we're going to install the black wire from the distributor to the negative feed on the new coil, and the positive side of the coil is going to get both the red wire from our Pertronix from the distributor and the ignition wire that we just crimped.

Before we move on to our spark plug wires while we're right here, we're going to remove our fuel filter. You want to make sure you put something down underneath it because you will spill some fuel on this part. I'm going to disconnect it at the carburetor. Now we'll disconnect it at the fuel line. You want to keep the filter relatively flat to keep spills down to a minimum. Now I'll move the other part of our hose off before I dispose of our filter.

The fuel filter will be directional. You want to make sure the side that says in is connected to the fuel line itself. Reconnect to the carburetor side and then reconnect to our fuel line, and we'll want to tighten up all of our clamps. Now we can move on to our spark plug wires. I recommend doing one wire and one plug at a time. The new cap and the old cap both have number one on the back labeled. I'm going to use this as a map and start with number one, remove one plug, one wire, install it to our new cap and move forward. Start by pulling the number one wire off the cap, fish it down and pull it off the plug end. I'll go find the new wire. Since many wires won't be labeled you'll want to go in and find the one that's closest in length to the one you just removed and we're going to install that one.

Now we're going to remove the number one plug. Now we're going to gap the plug before we install it. The Ford manual is going state 32/1000s but the modern ignition and modern plugs usually go to about 35 and still be OK. Ours is a little tight. Now it's gapped and ready to be installed. The last step before installing a couple of dabs of anti-seize on it. Now install the new wire, feed it up to our distributor. Now you'll want to repeat the process for the other seven spark plugs. What I'm going to do from here is go clockwise around the distributor. I'm going to go to this one next.

Now we're going to install the coil wire. The spark plug wire set actually comes with two coil wires. Since our coil's so close we can use the shorter one. You want to make sure the wires from the Pertronix are tied up safely away from the belts.

Now that we have it all back together we'll start it up and see how it runs. Our Weekend Wrench fires right up and idles nice and smooth now. Normally with an install like this we would suggest doing a PCV valve. In our case we just replaced it so it's already brand new. Installation should take you around two hours so you'll be back on the road in no time. For more videos on our Weekend Wrench and more installation videos make sure you subscribe to our YouTube Channel.