Finally I have electronic ignition on the derby! 8) If anyone else wants to do it on a polo 75-85 then heres what you need:

-Ignition coil from a late mk2 polo or mk2 golf Golf together with the ignition amp and ignition amp loom. I found the golf loom more useful as it was much longer. This meant I didnt have to drill a hole in the bulkhead which is there on later models but doesnt exist on early models. Instead the wiring could go up past the wash bottle through the gap at the end of the slam panel.

-Saab Distributor with hall sender, fitted to 900s and probably 9000s in the late 80s and early 90s If you find the right distributor it has the same plug as the polo/golf loom. The bosch number for the dizzy I've got is 0237 021 050. This dizzy is compatible with late mk2 polo HT leads and dizzy cap and rotor arm so you may need to buy those too.

The wiring is very simple, theres 6 wires on the ignition amp loom of which three go to the hall sender. of the other three the green wire goes to terminal 1 of the coil, the thin black wire goes to terminal 15 and the thick black wire goes to the -ve terminal on the battery.

From the original points ignition loom you may find that the green wire went to a white "two pin plug" on the coil. The red wire which is the other pin on this plug is for the rev counter and oil pressure circuit and this wire can be removed from this plug and plugged into the new coil in the same place.

There will have also probably been a black wire on the same loom as the red wire plugging to terminal 1 of the coil Plug this into the new coil too.

And thats it apart from figuring out firing order. When I go out to my car again later I will make a note of locations.

Just taken the car out for a drive and I cant believe the difference it's made. Its actually driveable now. Idle was really hight after fitting (2000ish rpm) which goes to show how badly it was running before (with no change in mixture or idle settings between dizzys). I just need to set up the mixture and idle properly now and then I'll be happy. The firing order by the way is:

Rear 1
Top 3
front 4
bottom 2

as viewed from the front of the car and no1 being the cylinder at the timing belt end.

I cant recommend this conversion enough. One less thing that has to be serviced too. 8)

Have you any Pics of this, looks like this is going to be one of my summer wamer days jobs, my little 84 is in need of a little pep up.

Sorry yeah I've kept meaning to do this. I will take some in the summer when you need them But seriously I will do it the next time I need to go under the bonnet in the derb.

Does this also work on a 1043 '90 G reg mk2 squareback?

Late mk2s such as yours have already got electronic ignition, so its already been done.

any pics yet

how do you know if your car has electronic ignition? I've just converted to a GT engine and I'm not getting a spark, do i need electronic ignition? thanks

GT has the ignition built into the ECU. As long as you have the right dizzy etc it should work. I suspect you may have the two plugs near the coil the wrong way around.

I just thought I'd bump this with some extra info. I'd been searching for ways to convert my early engine to electronic ignition and heard about the mk2 Golf 16v ECU setup being used as an alternative to the Saab 900 distributor. I found some of the KR stuff cheap so I bought it, but there are a fair few more wires than there is with a Saab dizzy and I wasn't sure what all of them were for or whether they were needed at all.

Luckily a lad by the name of Rubjonny over on the Mk1 Golf forum has detailed the wiring for this setup, so I've copied his info over onto here to try and help those who might still be wishing to convert their points engine using this method.


So as well as the KR dizzy, you'll need;

KR ECU


Ignition amp/TCI module (same as late polo mk2/Golf mk2 small block)


And the KR ECU loom with wiring numbered as follows



1 - Earth to battery -ve
2 - KR ign controller plug
3 - TCI-H plug
4 - Black - KR ign controller & TCI-H ign live - terminal 15 side of coil
5 - Green - Coil trigger - terminal 1 side of coil
\- red/black - spade is for the isv control unit, the main wire is the rev counter feed
6 - Brown - Earth to cylinder head
7 - Blue/white - Temp sensor feed (use one of the 3 on the side of the head)
8 - Dizzy plug
9 - red/yellow - Fuel pump relay earth trigger
\- black/yellow - idle switch feed (12v feed with throttle shut)


Its all plug and play!

Seems complicated vs using late mk2 parts.

Using late mk2 parts with what dizzy? The right saab dizzys aren't easy to come by!

Nah, just a late mk2 disi.

Fair play for finding a way with the KR bits though.

Can you convert late mk2 dizzys to fit the solid lifter engines then? Cymro said something about it but I didn't think it was possible?!

You can change the cam drive, or it at least looks possible, it looks there is a metal rolled dowel that you can tap out. I couldnt get it to budge inn my experimentation

Yeah you can get them out but there very stiff and the plastic is brittle so when you remove the pin from the cam drive it will usually break.

Yeah this is the problem I had when I tried stripping a spare dizzy I had.

Anyway, I've just looked at a late mk2 dizzy and its got a completely different housing and the part that the seal sits on is much bigger than the solid lifter one, so it wouldn't fit into the head even if you did manage to change the cam drive.

Unless there is a way of putting the internals of a late mk2 dizzy into the early dizzy the only options are the saab dizzy or the KR setup I mentioned above.

what dizzy can i use for a solid lifter head then?

You can use the dizzy from a KR 16v engine from a mk2 golf, along with the mk2 polo ignition amp and loom for non advanced ignition. Or the KR dizzy with the KR ECU and loom to retain the advance.

Or, you can use the Saab 900 dizzy along with the mk2 polo ignition amp and loom for vacuum advance ignition

The dizzy from a hydraulic head mk2 polo won't fit into the solid lifter head.

Apparantly a peugeot 205 1.9 GTI distributor will also fit into the solid lifter heads but I can't confirm this. They look the same but you never know until you try em lol.

mk1 ibiza 1.2 and 1.5 dizzys fit as well, but are a bit thin on the ground these days (no moreso than saab ones though!)

It looks to me like the KR one is the best bet as it does the lot, it is similar to how the GK management operates but the GK setup is all containd in the ECU (no separate amp)

I have a dizzy that fits my head, but the black hall sender plug is rounded. Do you reckon I could fit a new hall sender kit with the square plug to match the Polo loom?

Scrub that last question.......
Just looked up a new hall sender kit for my Saab dizzy and it throws up the same sender as fitted to the MK3 Polo range.
Makes things nice and simple. HTH.

I actually had this problem but I cut the end of the loom from the saab i took the hall sender off so I could re-wire the polo loom. Dizzy was faulty though.

epic thread revival, does the saab 900 dizzy fit straight in or do you need to make any modifications?

fits straight on, so long as it is the right one!

Wouldn't some thing like accuspark would be cheaper and easier to use these days?

Thats what i fitted to mine. Works great but the carb was letting it down

Why not just drill the 8mm hole in the cam drive for the later dizzy?

iirc, last time i looked at mine, the actual dizzy is smaller in general, so i think fitting it into the head in general would be a problem

For the last time, not possible I know you mentioned that you can turn the dizzy down so that it fits into the head, and that is a brilliant idea, but in this case there simply isn't enough meat where the seal sits on the later dizzy to take off. If you were to turn in down enough to have it fit in the head then there would be nothing for the seal to sit on


Edit; I've just had a good look at each dizzy side by side, and there might just be enough metal on the later dizzy to be able to fit the smaller seal, however the actual dizzy drive disc/nipple type thing protrudes a lot further than the early dizzy, so unless you space the dizzy out from the face that it bolts to, there isn't enough space for it in the side of the head. And if you do space it out the seal will no longer be sat inside the hole in the head, so it defeats the point in the first place. Even if you somehow managed to overcome all of this, you'll have had such ballache and cost getting it all to fit that you'd have been better off buying an Accuspark kit