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Bosch 050 distributor with pertronix electronic ignition VS 123/tune programmable distributor with Bluetooth.
In motor from Porsche 914 1.8.

Recommendations please!


I think I've read everything I could about the 123/tune distributor and the pertronix ignition, but much of the information is very old. Here we are in November 2020 I was wondering what was the status of these products, and maybe more people have first-hand experience they could share?
Here's a few more details about my application.

The motor is a professionally rebuilt 914-4 1.8 from 1974.( this is the story I got when I bought the motor and I have verified with the serial number stamped into motor) motor has been rebuilt 16 years ago, but been sitting unused for 15 years. ( low hours on rebuild)

I'm not sure of other details because the motor was purchased from a friend of a friend and I did not get many details at the time.

The original owner was not happy with the performance in his 914 and had the motor rebuilt supposedly with a different cam .

The original owner then drove car minimally and was still not happy with the performance and decided to switch to a custom Buick motor setup.

So this 914 motor was in his garage doing nothing.

I had a 65 Baja Bug with an extremely tired motor.

With the aid of a second friend purchased the 914 motor and installed on my Volkswagen.

At the time we installed a old 009 distributor on car.

Dual Weber 40idf's

And fabricated the exhaust to accommodate the large bug pack quiet type Muffler.

I've been driving the car and
recently I was trying to dial motor in and found it hard to get the dwell correct.

I decided to replace the distributor. for a variety of reasons.

I think there's two different ways
I might go

I found a New Old Stock Bosch 050 distributor . ( pricey) and was going to add the pertronix electronic ignition to it.

BUT

for about the same price I can get
123/tune with Bluetooth.

I like all the features of the 123tune but want to make sure it is reliable, and will run my motor as well as the Bosch 050 set up.

Since the price is about identical, that is not the issue.

Anybody that knows anything about these two products please share your knowledge.

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to give a clear picture of what I was doing.

Thank you, Stewart

I did a quick search as this is something I wasn't really aware of: https://www.bing.com/search?q=123%2Ftun ... 1c7f2258be One of the post says it deals with Air-cooled VW.

The 009 distributor has several different basic designs with the heavier cast one (as I remember) being more reliable vs. the lighter "stamped" (?) one. The bus unit starts the advance and finishes it at around 26° assuming I remember correctly.

If you get a used 009 or any used distributor (for that fact) have it checked out completely for bearings/bushings, and the dist. body itself and, if you are going to use it, the advance.

Lee

how precise and how much control you need over the ignition vrs how much you want to spend. Only you can answer that,,,,
Good luck!

DonH

This is a good discussion for many of us. I can tell you Jake Raby uses 123 ignition distributors on his builds(at least...the last time I talked to him. He doesn't talk to me much, or often). That doesn't mean anything per se, but he does have a reputation for a certain fastidiousness about his builds.

I think an 009 would work if recurved by someone who knows what they're doing, but otherwise run out of advance too soon for a T4. T4s tend to like 30-34 degrees of total advance.

I, personally, would like to have a 050 on hand as a fall back(I'm building 2 T4s and really have no distributors to speak of just yet....just a Magnaspark II I got from my son when he dropped out of the hobby and a pack of 009s) and try the 123 or one of the other new distributors on the market.

H2OSB

"The 009 distributor has several different basic designs with the heavier cast one (as I remember) being more reliable vs. the lighter "stamped" (?) one. The bus unit starts the advance and finishes it at around 26° assuming I remember correctly."

I goofed! The 26° for the start is about correct but the end comes in the low 30°s as I remember.

The 050, if I remember correctly, there was some talk that the advance can be used w/o the vacuum advance (in some cases) and works pretty good.

they have been talked about on STF before but not that recently. I did a search and it came up with over a thousand posts (mostly the posts dealt with just distributors in general).

Again, because of age complete checkouts are a good idea.

Lee

Is Glenn Ring still the go to guy for rebuild and parts on the Bosch units?

He's certainly still around and rebuilding

H2OSB

Probably best to reach him at the Samba for those interested. UN = Glenn, I think.