Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Hi,
Now I have decided to take the carbs off my +2 and overhaul them myself, I thought I should look into the possibility of converting to electronic ignition while they were off. (Does this job ever stop?)
Any advice/suggestions would be much appreciated.
Chris

Chris,

I put the Aldon sysytem on my +2 a little over a year ago and have been very pleased with it. In running I find no discernable difference from points when they are adjusted properly, but the real bonus is not having to contort and scratch one's hands to bits adjusting anything with the electronic system. One advantage of the Aldon set up is that everything is under the distributor cap so you can't tell it is non-original at a glance.

I didn't change coil or anything else and 4000 miles later everything seems fine. I have heard of reports of misfires with the Aldon sytem ( www.aldonauto.co.uk )and 'black box' failures with the Lumenition system, but my first hand experience has been fine.


Roy

I've been running my elan on a lumenition system for the last two years and have had no problems - it makes living with the car much easier and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.

Hi

I bought a secondhand unit off of Ebay, a Motronic I think. It worked on a magnetic system of some sort. I think that the car ran more evenly with it and it was good from a low maintenance point of view.

Go for it!

Berni

Hi Chris, I ran my S3 on an Aldon Ignitor, and it was the best money I spent. Fit and forget ! It is the same as the Pertronix (I think), which is made by Aldon, several of which have been available on Ebay recently at very competitive prices. No bad news from me, in fact I've just bought another S3 with Lumenition fitted, which I'm going to junk in favour of an Aldon.
I don't think you'll be disappointed,
Regards

I have the Pertronix unit and it works fine, but I had to change the insides on the tach.

I've had a Pirana opto ignition system fitted for the last 12years on my
Elan Sprint. However the Tacho is inaccurate. Other than that no problems.

Regards

I have an S4 with Aldon igniter and flame thrower coil. It never misses a beat.

Mike

ps you have to be aware with HT coil resistance that it is not less than the manufacturs spec'. A couple of friends of mine had trouble with Luminition because they had coils with to little resistance. This is not a fault just correct matching.

The Pertronix/Aldon Ignitor is a solid state switch built to replace the points. The red positive wire energizes the magnetically activated gate and will operate on 6 to 15 vdc with very little current draw. The black negative wire is the path for the primary circuit in the coil to complete the circuit to earth. Any of the vacuum retarded type dizzies must have a sufficiently sized grounding wire on the advance rotating plate to handle the current load without overheating. The reason the coil's primary circuit must have enough resistance is the hall effect switch is limited to only handling in the neighborhood of 8 amps peak current. These devices are the way to go to get super reliability from the Lucas dizzy.

IIRC, a CD module is not really required for an four-cylinder high performance engine which operates below 8k rpms. The time required for the coil to saturate becomes a real issue above 8k rpms though. On a V-8 engine that critical point for the coil happens at only 4k rpms though.

Don't spank the high dielectric insulator pieces like the rotor and cap with a high-voltage coil when it's not required to get complete combustion. You'll eventually pay the price by possibly getting stranded alongside the road with a short. BTDT. It sucks!
-Keith

Thanks,
I have just about decided on the Aldon system. Are you saying that I should also fit the uprated coil?
chris

The matching flamethrower coil is a good idea

Does anybody have a way to make the tacho work reliably with electronic ignition apart from rebuilding it or changing it for a later unit?

:angry:
If you are having trouble making your tach work with an electronic ignition, I can tell you one thing NOT to do. Do not send it to Nisonger for a conversion. Despite their claim that they can modify the tach to work with electronic ignitions, they cannot. What they will do is blame the problem on the customer and you will waste a lot of time shipping the unit back and forth to them while they come up with excuses. And if you pay by check or cash, rather than putting your order on a Visa card, you will never get your money back.

Frank Howard
'71 S4 SE
Minnesota

The fact that some original current sensing elan tachs work with electronic ignitions and some dont suggest that the problem relates to relatively small differences in some on the electronic components either in the tacho itslf or in the coil, ignition leads or electronic trigger.

I have installed 3 lumenition units in my elan and plus 2 over the years and never had any problem with tach accuracy changing. On the other hand I have seen lots of identical installations where the tach would bounce all over the place and be very inaccurate.

I would be interested if any one has ever investigated the electrical engineering details of why some work and some dont.

Rohan

My tacho just bounces once in a while. The rest of the time it does nothing. I am going to try another unit to see if it's my electronic ignition or the tacho itself. Given that the electronic components in the tacho are about 30 years old....