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chickenofthesea

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"I recently purchased a 1971 P

"I recently purchased a 1971 Penn Yan 22' powered by an LM318 with a Carter four barrel. I noticed the distributer is an ACCEL 30301 with two sets of points. She runs great!

Questions: Is this the original distributer? I thought ACCEL was an aftermarket product.
Would it be worth it to switch over to an electronic ignition... Is it worth the money?

Thank you,
Ted"
 
"Ted, regarding your question

"Ted, regarding your question about switching to electronic.....in my opinion, yes, the Pertronix kit is worth the money. In addition to being a very quick/easy install, it's actually quite cheap. When I switched my 318 over, I bought the conversion kit and one of their "Flame Thrower" coils. I believe that the whole ball of wax was about $100 (the conversion kit may have been $70 ad the coil around $30). The dual-point kit for your dist may be slightly more money....but not much.

To me, it was short money to not worry about points anymore."
 
Any have a guess to how old th

Any have a guess to how old this ACCEL is? If I Google the 30301 find nothing.

Also how do I tell if it is a "marine protected ignition distributer"?
 
"That's probably an old nu

"That's probably an old number or possibly a number that designated marine vs. auto (?). ACCEL's current automotive replacement for the LA318 is 59301. The replacement part for the rotor only is I30319 (which is closer to your part #).

Since it's aftermarket, I'm not quite sure how you'd identify that it's marine specific. Many will have clips that hold the cap to the rotor. My suggestion would be to call ACCEL and see if they can tell you what to look for (aside from the obvious vacuum units, etc.).

If you end up with doubts about it being a marine unit, I'd just pick up a used OE Chrylser marine rotor (probably from any marine salvage place), yank the points out of, throw in a Pertronix conversion, get a new cap and be good to go.....just make sure the rotor shaft does't have any wobble and spins smoothly.

The risk of having an automotive unit depends a lot on usage too. There a lot of guys dropping trailer boats in a lake for the weekend who run all sorts of automotive components (incl. performance parts). It still usually ends up meaning shorter part-life or broken-down boats.....but slightly less of a risk vs. being out at sea."
 
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