8N Electronic Ignition??

Several reasons.....1) insufficent market....2) weird design of ignition coil, only 1 terminal....3) insufficent internal space for transistors to fit inside distributor body..... 4) transistors don't work too well on 6 volts so you'd haffta convert to 12 volts

Now then if you really understand electronics and are invertant tinkerer, well yeah, you can design and build one for braggin' rights. Bottom line, electronic ignition for casual consummer is a "NO GO"..... .....sorry, Dell

Electronics Man

I must respectfully request that you drop #'s 3 and 4 from yer list of good reasons a front-mount electronic disti conversion doesn't exist.

1) True. Insufficient market. Not enuff TAM to justify development.

2) True. Weird design of the integrated coil/disti makes it different partitioning than most cheapo kit solutions.

3) Here it gets ugly. Transistor size is NOT an issue. Big metal TO-3 packages, maybe, but SMT D-paks and other ceramic power packages can dissipate 100's of watts in sizes that are so small you can't print a part number on them. In the front-mount case, the ambient heat is a silicon killer no matter what the package, but it's not nearly as problematic as the delamination of the coil under that heat...

4) Now cut that out!!! You can easily saturate -any- bipolar transistor on a 6 volt supply, and it's just as happy to run in linear mode biased anywhar in between. In fact, many bipolar silicon processes and even moreso in MOSFETs are limited to 20-25V max., and some power switchers can't use gate voltages higher than 10V without damage.. In an HEI or CD ignition, the dynamic switched coil current spike on the primary side don't look much different on 6V vs. 12V.

But reasons #1 and #2 are sufficient to justify the reason there is no electronic ignition for my frontmount 8N!!!

God bless Dell anyhow for all the right reasons!!!!

(I'll crawl back into my hole now!!)

A few years ago, the N-Newsletter magazine had an article in their summer issue about a guy who had modified a Genessee electronic ignition unit to work with a front mounted unit. He had to turn the shaft down on a lathe and bore out the sleeve of the electronic unit on order for it to work, but he said that it really improved the performance of his tractor.

I'd love to have an electronic ignition for my 2N, but unless I find a used distributor that I can modify (or Genessee decides to produce a unit for 9/2N's), I'll probably not get my wish.

Good Luck!

Ron

Your tractor's 53 years old and made it this far as designed. Don't be frustrated by having to do a little extra maintenance because it has a points & condensor ignition system.

part of the fun with these tractors is that maintenance. Gives you a great feeling to tinker around a bit and have her running like she was new. Also gives you some great stories to share on this board. Don't give up bubba.