My 84 Ironhead sportster has points, im not sure if that is factory or not.
considering changing over to electronic ignition, has anyone changed over before and if so how did it work out.

 

84's came with the Dual-Fire electronic system from the factory. It's possible to interchange from electronic to points so that's what was done. I'd lose the points & install the factory system. Keep the points with the bike though because if the electronic system ever fails, the points will get you home.

 

i have an sporty that came with points. the previous owner switched it out from electronic.. I switched it to a dyna dual fire with no problems.about 150 bucks. do not switch it to dyna single fire i did that today and now i have to change the coil.. the total electronic ones are ok there is no noticable gain in performance. single or dual fire. hope this helps. I learned the hard way ride safe larry

 

I switched from points to a Crane Hi-4 single fire on my 75xl. Will never go back. It starts very easy now (hot or cold). Idles a little better too. No improvement at highway speeds though.

All is well,

CarlGrover

 

I'll concur that the '84 came with electronic ignition (V-Fire III) from the factory. One thing to be careful of - the coil used with points should have a different resistance than the one used for electronic ignition. If you install a points conversion on a bike that originally had an electronic ignition, the points won't last nearly as long if you don't replace the coil too. A points ignition should have a 4.5-5.0 ohm coil, and the later Sportster electronic ignition came with a 2 to 3 ohm (approximately)coil, depending on the year.

 

Interesting. I converted an '88 to points after it left me stuck on the side of the road with a dead ignition module. There is very little you can't fix on the side of the road with a real ignition system and very little that you can fix with electronics. I had a new ciol from Harley Nostalgia fail and managed to get home on 2 Kmart 6 volt car coils wired in series on my old Ironhead.