Looking for some advice on options to upgrade from points to electronic ignition.
What to buy how to install?
Seeing as you're in New Zealand, and a Bosch EI unit will need to be imported from the USA ...and then dealing with vacuum advance and different ignition timing advance curves, there may be a better option for you than going this route.
Lumenition replaces the points trigger with an optical trigger, kits are readily available from the UK and I would be surprised if there is not a Lumeniton agent somewhere in NZ
Pertronix from the USA is basically the same as the lumenition, using an optical trigger, but one system triggers when the beam makes, the other when the beam breaks (it was a patent thing apparently and lumenition had the idea first from what I understand)
The other difference in the two brands are the mounting method for the trigger and the chopper, my vote goes to lumenition for having the better components and bracketing.... but probably not the marketing clout and fancy names like "flamethrower" which makes people think they are getting something extra.
the biggest benefit of either system is that it doesn't matter if there is the usual wear between the body and shaft of the dizzy, the dwell is constant, so things like 'spark scatter" and dwell variation which a worn distributor with points would have simply dont happen with an optical trigger...then there is the added benefit of never needing o replace points and set dwell/ timing ever again.
The added bonus is that you retain everything else, the mechanical advance etc and the advance curve it provides will remain unchanged, you just get rid of the points and don't introduce any other variable.
If you want the most cost efficient option, then plenty of NZ delivered models from the 1980's and 1990's that used the SOHC which were sold new in NZ will have a marelli electronic distributor, look at regata / ritmo / uno / early punto ... of these models most of the USA guys wouldn't even know what they looked like as they were never sold in the USA, which is why they don't mention them as an option.
SteveC