I recently have been having trouble with my 72 240Z in that it will randomly die while im driving along. It would start back up after that but the problem just kept reoccurring more and more often. I asked my mechanic what he thought might be the problem and he suggested that my electronic ignition converter was going out. I ordered a new one and installed it today. But now it wont start. It will turn over fine but does not seem to spark. While trying to start it, the car did backfire a couple of times. I have the black lead from the converter hooked up to the coil and the red lead to ballast resistor. It is a brand new pertronix converter. Any ideas as to what might be wrong? Thanks!

 

Welcome to Z driver! Try calling Pertronics tech support. I think you need to check the gap if any or what ever generates the pulse. I don't think you need the ballast resistor with it but instead of removing it just loop across it. Check the voltage at the coil +. And my favorite test- get your girl friend to hold the big wire from the coil while you crank it over. If she jumps perform the same test with a sparkplug wire, assure her that this time it won't hurt if she touches the fender at the same time.

 

thanks for the welcome! I will indeed try these. How exactly would you loop across the resistor? Thanks again!

 

The ballast resister reduces the voltage to 8 volts. If you loop a jumper wire from one side to the other you will have the full 12 volts to the coil. If the resistor is bad it should start right up. If it doesn't then the coil or the way you installed the pertronic could be the problem. Do you have 12 volts to the + side of the coil with the key on?

 

I can't check as of the moment. I'm at college and my voltmeter is at home about an hour away

 

It turns out it was a self inflicted wound. When removing the old pertronix ingnition system i unscrewed one screw tpo many and it caused the centrifugal weights inside the distributor to fall out of position and therefore the ignition timing to be off. Thank you theramz for all the suggestions though! Really appreciate it