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Pertronix Ignitor

Pertronix makes an electronic ignition converter. No more points, no more fiddling, and it fits completely inside your distributor, which is great if you want your engine to look stock.

It's also relatively inexpensive. I was able to find them on eBay for under $100. It's easy to install and the wiring is pretty simple. Here's a link to the instructions. It takes about an hour. You'll still need to set the timing advance manually, but that's it.

However, not everybody is in favor of the conversion. Jeff at Advanced Distributors is a professional distributor rebuilder for vintage cars (such as a 240z) and here's what he has to say about conversion kits:

"Points or Pertronix is one of the most frequently asked questions I get. My answer is almost always points, for performance and reliability, but it depends. If you have a distributor that is severely worn and the dwell angle refuses to stay stable, an electronic ignition will stabilize your dwell, providing better drivability. EVERY TIME this happens, every time you hear a story of a car running much better from installing electronic ignition, its because of this single factor. It was installed into a distributor that needs to be rebuilt – not cleaned and reassembled. Rebuilt. Most people don't understand the difference because they don't know what clearances are required or what advance curve is required to make their car run the way it used to run on leaded fuel of the decade the car was produced. In fact, most people don't understand much about what the distributor does, and that's ok. Just know its a critical function like valve timing or compression values, and if its wrong the car can run downright mediocre or worse. If you're reading this, I know you want better than mediocre."

"Here's the biggest reason electronic ignitions don't belong inside a distributor. Low voltage electronics do not work consistently when they are installed next to a high voltage source, unless you have plenty of room to install shielding, and even with that possibility, its rarely 100% effective. Inside your distributor spins a rotor, which throws an arc to each cap terminal, up to 50 times per second in a street car, 200 arcs per second in a 4 cylinder, 300 in a 6, 400 in an 8. This 15,000 Volt arc jumps within a couple inches of the 12V module that's looking for a tiny magnetic or optical signal. Many times a second, an extra signal can be generated or one can be skipped. Even if the "misfire" rate is only 1 in 500 (usually its higher than that), you can be down 3, 5, 10 hp. I've seen a TR6 lose 39 hp on the dyno from installing an electronic ignition with no other changes. You'll see this happen more on a chassis dyno than in an engine dyno cell since the alternator or generator, car wiring, and many other factors can turn the engine bay into a Faraday cage amplifying the problem – as if the distributor cap itself doesn't already make a good Faraday cage. Other types of misfires, high resistance plug wires, improper or mediocre grounding, 5kOhm spark plugs (resistance type), and countless other common "issues" in collector cars can amplify issues when using ANY electronic ignition. Which one works perfectly? Points. They are a simple on/off grounding switch that rarely have issues. Yes, points need to be adjusted, but the adjustments are easy and only take a few minutes."

If your distributor is worn out, the Pertronix might be a cheap fix but it's not a cure.