Re: Ballast resistor with Pertronix?

[jlandry@domain.elided (John A. Landry)]

When he stopped taking his medication, strange voices in "John Hofstetter"
<hofs@domain.elided>'s head said:

>Somewhere in the back of my mind, I think I remember Darrel Kline
>telling us that the Pertronix has to have the ballast resistor. I
>bring this up lest in the weekend shuffle, someone who knows for sure
>doesn't see the original post.

To whom it may concern,

If you use a coil with less than 1.5 Ohms of resistance (across the primary
terminals), then you must use a ballast resistor to lower the voltage
supplied to the coil.  If you use a breaker-point compatible coil, then the
resistance should be at or above 1.5 Ohms.  If you use a high performance
coil such as the MSD Blaster, II, III, then you'll need to use the ballast
resistor.

This is because the Pertronix module is only capable of properly switching
so much current (10 amps by my guess).  A low resistance coil passes too
much current and overloads (and possibly burns out) the Pertronix module.

Good catch John H.!

John L.
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