[Raion]

For the first time in my life, in February I purchased a daily driver with a distributor ignition system. 

I didn't think much of it mostly because I rarely have had ignition system problems with my vehicles. But all of my major dailies prior to this either used waste spark (my Subarus) or coil on plug. 

Three weeks ago I went to start my vehicle and it started misbehaving. Not holding idle, rough acceleration and lurching while cruising. It turns out that my distributor was going. Thankfully somebody had a guy online about how to rebuild the bearings in it but as I took it apart I realized that this was an aftermarket one, so i instead bought a used one and rebuilt that.

Since then I haven't had any real issues, but I thought that I would give out my personal viewpoint on each type of system. 

I like coil on plug in principle because it provides a multiple failure system that won't result in the catastrophic shutdown of most cars. Unfortunately looking at the price of a singular coil being oftentimes above 300 USD is a little bit disheartening because if you have more than one fail then you're going to be paying hundreds upon hundreds for replacement even if you yourself are doing the install. 

On the other hand a distributor system is much cheaper to service or repair. It does act as a single point of failure and you will need a timing light and other things to fully repair it but I'm not entirely sure I think that's a downside. 

On the other hand waste spark is probably my favorite. Despite its down side of wearing out components quicker it maintains the simplicity of both systems and keeps prices for repair reasonable. 

For those of you who have owned both systems or have a preference out of technical reasons, I'm always curious to hear another side.

[weblacky]

While not anymore, our family had a low mileage Ford from 1972 from about 1996 to 2004 with a straight 6 and fully carbureted. Early on we had some distributor issues so our old mechanic (who was a vintage car specialist). Suggested an electric distributor (magnetic pickup instead of points). This change was made during the first year of ownership.

We ran all subsequent years without any engine work! We didn’t place much more than maybe 20,000 miles on the car (local driving only). But it was problem-free.

So that’s my suggestion, rebuild it as an electric pickup, then set the timing and forget it!

Enjoy the car!

[Raion]

This is a vg33 powered car which has an optical pickup. I'm not interested in replacing my ignition either way I just was curious as to what people thought regarding pros and cons

[vishnu]

Years ago, okay, decades ago, I was driving my car that I nicknamed Explodo Mobile because of its tendency to dump a cylinder's worth of unburned fuel into the muffler, where it would then explode. So one day I was driving to my sister's house down I35 and for whatever reason I had to floor the thing to get around some idiot or whatever, can't remember anymore, but what happened was the distributor cap basically self destructed. Being the level headed and introspective guy that I am, I cruised off the freeway, found a pay phone (yes it was that long ago!), called my sister, and she came to pick me up and drive me to the nearest automotive store, where I bought a new distributor cap and was back on the road. I eventually donated the car to the Veterans of America, who of course came to my house and picked it up for free. It was a 1968 Impala. If I still had it I bet it would be worth more than I payed for it.