Shane F. Ingate wrote:
> There appears to be 3 popular systems, the Pertronix which
> fits under the distributor cap, and the Crane and MSD systems
> which have an "extra" box to mount to, say, the firewall.
> Is this box the amplifier? Does the Pertronix have an amplifier,
> and if not, why have an amplifier in the first place?
The term "amplifier" is more a term related to the workings
of the unit itself rather than to any real need.
Essentially, all electronic ignition systems use "something"
to detect the position of the distributor, and "some circuit"
to convert this to a square wave of 12V at the coil. In Electronics
terms, anything that takes a weak signal (from the sensor) and
converts it to a strong signal (at the coil) could be termed
an amplifier.
But it's worth nothing that the electronic ignition module
is on the low tension side of the system. It doesn't deal with
big sparks, it only switches 12V (or less, with ballast). There
is no real scenario that an "amplified" system could give you
bigger or hotter sparks.
The crane system uses an optoelectronic device, it "peers"
through a chopper blade on your distributor shaft. When the
visual path is broken and made, the detector end gets a
weak signal that is then "amplified" in the box to get a logic
pulse at the coil.
The pertronix is a hall-effect sensor. Metallic bars attached
to the distributor shaft are spun by a detector, affecting it's
magnetic field and inducing a current. At the proper moment
when this current is at the right phase, the coil line
is switched, and you have spark. All the electronics are
in the same "lump" under the cap, though.
> Finally, if I install one of these systems, will I benefit further by
> changing the coil to say a Lucas Sport, or ProMaster, or Mallory, etc?
Perhaps. Note that some of these units have minimum coil
primary resistances, and using too low of coil might burn
them out. The pertronix specifies 3.5 ohms, and this is
DC resistance so easily measured with common tools.
--
.---------------------------------------Ottawa-Canada-GOSENSGO-----.
/ Trevor Boicey 1992 Celica GT 1975 MG Midget /
`----- tboicey@brit.ca -------...so close, but so far, gosensgo--'
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