At 12:38 PM 8/5/2000 EDT, Jeff Zorn, LBCarCoMail@aol.com wrote:
>The ignitor will last under normal circumstances far longer than your
typical points and condensor.
Not ever having purchased an ignitor myself, I don't have the first number
required to do this calculation, so would someone care to fill in the
blanks and let me know what the answer is?
CI / CP x LP = DLI
Where:
CI = Cost of ignitor
CP = Cost of points
LP = life of points
DLI = Desired life of ignitor
This is just a simple economic calulation, which does not account for
social benefits or the time value of money. I have a vague idea of what
that last number might be, and I don't think the ignitor would generally
last that long (with greater than say 95% probability of success).
I understand that the primary reason for using the ignitor would be to
increase the service intervals, for those of us who have that overwhelming
desire to treat our LBCs like modern appliances. For reasons of personal
safety and a desire not to be inconvenienced when something does fail, you
should carry the spare part in the car in either case, which means you need
to double the initial cost of either device.
Incidentally, my Mallory dual point distributor would run on only one set
of points in a pinch, so I don't feel the need to carry spare points, just
a spare condenser. And this is not an endorsement for Mallory, as the
replacement parts are much more expensive than the original equipment Lucas
parts.
Barney Gaylord
1958 MGA with an attitude
http://www.ntsource.com/~barneymg
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