electronic ignition

Is there a preferred choice for electronic ignition in my 1500? Benefits?
Any help would be appreciated.
thank you.

Hi, I took a look at this last year after engine recon and my old vellerman kit failed. I found a place in Bromsgrove willing to to a bespoke mod and get rid of points. However I decided to keep the points and designed and built my own circuit, happy to share the design, it works fine and has been trouble free since fitting late 2014. The main reason I took this route is that points last a very long time when so little current goes through them, over 50,000 miles, the car runs fine, easy to change to standard if electronic fails, low cost. Parts available from eBay and maplin. What it does not fix is start issue when hot, this is because I think that is a fuel problem. Hope this is useful, Kevin

This sounds interesting. Are the points used for triggering a circuit? I would love to see the diagram Kevin.

An upgrade to electronic ignition or along the lines of what Kevin has done is well worth while. I found that on all the cars I have had that ran on points that the quality of the parts (condenser, points, etc) is very often poor quickly leading to problems. The system is now so antiquated that the replacement parts people seem to be of the opinion that they can only sell if they are as cheap as possible - surprising as tripling the quality wouldn't make any of the components more than a few pounds.
If you do keep it original buy from a reputable supplier who has an interest in the marque. I'm not sure if they have one to fit but Aldon Automotive produce a very good conversion kit

Hi David,

I have attached the circuit diagram, this should be self explanatory. The main component is the IGBT which is designed for electronic ignition. It is robust with lots of protection nevertheless the circuit I developed has added protection. You could simplify it if you wanted, the bits I would leave off, if I did this again, would be the LED indicator and the change over switch. The circuit has been reliable, I tested it before and after installation and have had no issues. I installed the circuit in a small die cast aluminium box from Maplin (The box was the most expensive item at £5.). Installation can be a problem in the X19 because it gets hot! I’ve found a couple of good places, but this time I installed it just behind the thermal insulation that lines the engine to passenger compartment bulkhead. Here it is close to the coil and distributor so no long wires. I estimate the cost of all components to be about £13.00, the components were from Maplin except for the IGBT which I purchased via ebay. The design is mine, but I am happy for you (and other X19 owners) to use/adapt at your risk....but Ive had no trouble at all. Let me know if you go down this route.

I would not recommend the Vellerman kit which is available, the components are not ideal as they get too hot. The kits with high voltage drivers and a hall effect switch to replace the points are perhaps the most logical but you might need to go to a specialist (like Powerspark Ignition in Bromsgrove) as the X19 is not common enough so they adapt another kit to fit the X19 distributor. I was not happy with this as I wanted something I could quickly revert to standard should the electronics fail.

Have fun, Kevin