Cali,68,L-79

I want to know if this reading is good. hooked up my micro reader to the ballast and got .11 conductivity. Is that good?

427V8

:crazy:
Ohms, you want Ohms....

On second thought if you actually ARE reading conductance...then it's good


[Modified by 427V8, 9:46 PM 12/3/2003]

Surfer69

Make sure your suppose to have that ballast resistor, 68 and 69 only had resistor wire I thought. I had ballast resistor on my car plus the resistor wire which was totally wrong. Lars said yank the ballast out of there and in to the trash.

Cali,68,L-79

Can I assume that if both lead wires (one from starter and other from ignition) are covered in white cloth covering with white insulation that they are stock and thus one is a resister wire, want I do not want to do is blow the new coil.

LemansBlue68

The wire going from your solenoid to your coil is regular wire. It supplies a full 12V to your coil while cranking. I think the cloth covering is for heat protection because the wire is near the exhaust manifolds. The wire from your firewall connector to the coil is also cloth covered but is resistor wire. It should measure about 1.5 Ohms.

LemansBlue68

I just read your other thread. If you want to get rid of the resistor wire (or ballast resistor) if that's what you have now, there are coils available now that will operate on a full 12V. I just bought one for mine because I could not find a source to replace my resistor wire and did not want to install a ballast resistor. Then you can just bypass the resistor wire and hook directly to the coil for good! Who knows how good that old coil is anyway? :thumbs:

Surfer69

Yeah, if you have two wires, one should be resistor the other starter. There is a way to check which wire is which with the voltmeter. I'll look for that and get back.

BB wowbagger

Sorry if i hijack this thread alittle bit,but is the purpose of the ballast to "save" the points in the dist? :smash: :cheers:

Pete76Shark

As I understand it, and I could be wrong. The ballast resistor provides an even voltage to the coil, 12 volts. This is needed because alternators provide up to 14 volts to run the accessories and recharge the battery. But you want a steady 12 volts going to the coil regardless of what the alternator (voltage regulator) is putting out.

Garrett1972

Hate to say it, but your wrong, if you have much more than 8 to absolute MAX 9 volts going to the coil you will burn it up. The only time you send 12 volts to the coil is while cranking and that is never for more that 20 seconds or so. They do make coils that will handel 12 volts now, but if you are using points you will probably burn them out using 12 volts.

427V8

:iagree:

Cali,68,L-79

Garret's right. As I put on the other thread. Take both cloth covered wires off the coil and or ballast. Ensure your coil plug wire is disconected first. Using voltmeter turn ignition switch to ON, one wire will be hot (12V) the other will be 0V, take that 0V wire and now crank the motor over while measuring it with voltmeter, it should read 12V. This (starter wire is non-resister and should go to either the outlet of the ballast going to the + coil or wired directly on the + coil. The other is ignition wire and should be resister wire and not need a ballast but for some reason theri's one on mine.

:rolleyes:

comp

i've seen this before(not on vet) resistance wire looses resist. install ballist.
works, later wire gets resist( act of god??) system has to much then, you may see a spark but it's not enought to fire in cyl. under compression
food for thought


[Modified by comp, 7:31 PM 12/4/2003]

71coupe

If coils can only handle 12v, how does mine survive with 450 volts with my MSD pluged into it?

Cali,68,L-79

It doesn't have 450 volts going into the coil.

427V8

It only has 450 volts for a short time :smash

Believe it or not thats about the same as you get with stock points. It all has to do with the collapse of a magnetic field in an inductor, (Back EMF)

71coupe

Cali - that's what it states in the specs:

http://www.msdignition.com/ignition_11.htm

460 volts to 480 volts to be exact



[Modified by 71coupe, 10:27 PM 12/4/2003]

Pete76Shark

71coupe the operating voltage is what we are talking about. Not the output voltage. Looks like the operating voltage for your coil is 10 to 18 volts

71coupe

Pete - The operating voltage is what the MSD box needs to power up it's capacitors. The primary voltage is what actually goes to the coil (460-480v)
BTW, probably the best single mod I've performed on my car. No longer needed to be concerned about ballast resistors once I hooked up the MSD 6T.
The idle smoothed out, gas mileage is better, & plug life has increased dramaticly --put it on your Xmas list.
:cheers:

Cali,68,L-79

Cali needs a complete MSD ignition system for X-Mas. For you rich 4 Vette owners you can claim me on 04 taxes. IM me for mailing address of the MSD system.

:jester