Did some searching on here and could not find the answers I was really looking for. I have installed the Mel's ign kit and would like to remove the whole ballast resitor stuff involved with the old points system. Will this burn up the stock coil due to the increased voltage ? And if so how quickly ? What are my options for new coils ? Many thanks...
Eliminating ballast resistor with Mels Ign
- Thread starter JustDave45
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This has been answered a lot, including your previous post about this. Whether you need a ballast resistor or not depends only on what type of coil you have. It doesn't matter what kind of ignitor or distributor you have. If you remove the resistor from a coil that needs one, it may overheat and fail.
The purpose of a ballast resistor coil is to make cold starts more reliable (in conjunction with a resistor bypass wire). There is no significant down side to having one other than they can fail. If this doesn't appeal to you just buy a non ballast coil. The new ignition and coil will not increase the spark voltage and increasing the voltage over stock has no effect on the engine performance, but may give problems with insulation break down and reliability. The things that determine the spark voltage are the spark plug gap and the load on the engine.
The purpose of a ballast resistor coil is to make cold starts more reliable (in conjunction with a resistor bypass wire). There is no significant down side to having one other than they can fail. If this doesn't appeal to you just buy a non ballast coil. The new ignition and coil will not increase the spark voltage and increasing the voltage over stock has no effect on the engine performance, but may give problems with insulation break down and reliability. The things that determine the spark voltage are the spark plug gap and the load on the engine.
- Thread starter
- #3
Thanks for the reply, my reason for wanting to do away with it is just less clutter and components and easier to wire as I am replacing the whole harness. So when you refer to a non-ballast coil would that mean a 12 volt coil ? Are there other specs that are important ? I just want to go to the local parts house and pick one up.
Coolerman
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Just about anything thats +12V and does NOT require a ballast will work. You won't need a Mega Super Spark Coil, Flame Throwing Coil or Nano Enhanced Flux Capacitor Coil.
Ballast type coils typically have a primary resistance of 1-2 ohm, while non ballast types are more like 2-3 ohm. You would need a pretty decent meter to accurately measure resistances this low, but sometimes the resistance is listed in the spec sheet.
