Dear Scotty, I’m from the Philippines and I have a 1989 Mitsubishi pajero/Montero manual transmission with a 4 cylinder 4g54 gasoline engine with a carburetor. It’s really just a weekend car I’ve kept for more than 20 years now for sentimental reasons so I hardly drive it around.
I’ve been thinking about changing the distributor to one with electronic ignition because I’ve read that it makes the engine run much smoother and makes you get better mileage but my mechanic says I should just stick with the present setup because when those things go out you’re left stranded, but with the present contact-point and condenser setup you know when it’s time to change them out when they act up but without leaving you stranded.
I was wondering if you think I should go ahead and change to electronic ignition or just keep the present setup as-is.
I would listen to your mechanic.
I converted an older vehicle to electronic ignition using an aftermarket kit several years back. Worked great for a while but one day it left me sitting on the side of the road so I went back to the old points setup. I figure that since the car gets less than 1000 miles per year of use, at 10K mile intervals to replace points and plugs that's more than a decade between tuneups. I can live with that as well as having to crank the engine a bit more when it's cold.
