Mike:
While it is possible to have the ballast resistor in the coil
itself, that would mean that the coil would have three terminals on it,
so that the ballast can be bypassed during starting. I have never heard
of an internally ballasted coil, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
Far more likely that that the coil is of the non-ballasted type,
and so you must bypass the ballast wire built in to the wiring harness
in order to get enough voltage to the coil, especially at idle. The TR6
wiring on the later models is set up for a ballasted coil, to make
starting more positive. If you were to install a non ballasted coil,
then the operating voltage would be too low for the coil to work
correctly.
Vance
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-6pack@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-6pack@autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of michael lunsford
Sent: Friday, August 06, 2004 4:51 AM
To: 6pack@autox.team.net
Subject: Voltage to coil
Would someone out there enlighten us on the coil voltage issue. It was
my understanding that unless your coil had an internal ballast you
needed an external ballast, either through the old fashoned ballast
resistor or through the resistor wire built into later models. I have
the pertronix ignition in mine with a ballast resistor and it began to
stall at stop lights when the RPMs got down around 800. After a lot of
head scratching I discovered that the new coil I recently installed had
an internal ballast and, since I had a ballast resistor also I was
reducing the voltage twice. I just bypassed the external ballast and
the car now runs fine. Is this line of reasoning correct or is this
just another example of Lucas electric being FM.
Mike Lunsford, 1970 TR6
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