My buddy has a sandrail he's rebuilding and said he wanted to get this Compufire distributorless ignition system:

http://www.compufire.com/vw-products-main.html

I have not seen this ever mentioned here but assumed it was comparable to the MSD systems and the Pertronix

What are the pros and cons of each?
Do they all have a special application?
General Thoughts?
Meaningless thread input?

*he has a '72 Type 1 engine if it matters 1.6L*

seriously.. no one? lol

The compufire DIS-IX is exactly what you say, distributorless. This operates similar to a modern car with separate coil packs. The pertronix is a point replacement system, and the MSD is a capacitor discharge ignition. So it kind of like comparing apples to oranges to pears. The DIS-IX is probably the best way to go, since you wont ever need a distributor cap or rotor again. The only drawback to the DIS-IX is that is still runs off a distributor drive, which can have some jitter, which will show up in the timing, but other than that, its the better way to go.

What about the vacuum advance curve? It looks like the Compufire one uses the 009 distributor curve. Maybe there are others available. I think I remember Jake saying the 009 is not so good for our application.

The compufire is a retrofit for the 009, so it uses whatever advance curve is in the distributor. You might be able to use it on a standard 914 distributor as well. There might be some clearance issues to deal with, but it should be possible.

I have one .... never used it. Uses an 009 for trigger, but at least it has a chrome cover.

Looks good sitting in the box.

Maybe someday I will pull the trigger mechanism out of the 009 and put it in a useful distributor.

And then again, maybe not .... like I said, it's purty in the box.

Slits, if you get tired of looking at it purty in its box, I will take it off your hands for ya. Just let me know how much you want for it.

The Pros are it's not an MSD POS and might actually work for more than 6 months. Every single item I have purchased from MSD besides the finish yourself plug wires has failed, I will never ever buy anything from them again.
As I have mentioned before I had 3 MSD-6AL boxes fail in short order (street car use only) and they lost them during warranty repair and I never got replacement boxes (they would just fail again anyway.) My old boss has a huge box (more like a crate) of failed MSD units from the UOP CanAm cars - literally hundreds of them. They do make more power from less fuel while they are working - my old V8 ran several jet sizes smaller (4 or 5 sizes on a Holley carb) than it would run with a standard ignition setup. They are also dangerous to be around while the engine is running - they will hurt you bad if you touch the wires - knock you on your ass for a while kind of hurt.
Steve

Mallory. Period.

I have over 100K miles on the cap and rotor fitted to the Uni-Lite in my 912E, it's been in service since 2002 and was only removed to test a direct fir system for 15K miles or so.

The comufire system is NOT distributorless! It depends on the dizzy as the foundation AND advance curve, so all you end up with is a hotter spark, still have the crappy initial advance and advance curve.

I only promote the MSD to my competitors, when they fail- we pass them.