In a message dated 98-06-12 12:29:54 EDT, robertr@digex.net writes:
> I am trying to find out if I have my Lucas sport coil wired correctly for
> me to take full advantage of it. There are two wires on the positive side.
> One is white coming out of the wiring harness the other leads a couple of
> inches to a blue plastic round thing which is attached to the engine
> block,(I have no idea what this thing is). There is one wire on the
> negative side again going to the harness. My TR6 is a 74. I hope this
> provides enough info.
Robert,
According to my information, a '74 TR6 should have a white/yellow wire coming
out of the harness to the + terminal of the coil. Could yours be a late '73
titled as a '74? Or perhaps a previous owner has modified it? The '74 had a
ballast resistor, while the '73 and earlier didn't.
Anyway, it sounds as if you wiring is OK for the sports coil, but there is an
easy way to test it. With the engine running, measure the voltage at the
positive battery terminal and at the + terminal on the coil. If these are the
same, then you are OK. If the voltage at the coil is significantly less than
battery voltage (a few volts), then you have a ballast resister which must be
bypassed.
If you need to bypass the ballast, it couldn't be easier. Simply run a wire
from the fuse box terminal with the white wires on it to the plus lead of the
coil. No need to remove the existing white wire, but you can if you wish.
There are other, more esthetically pleasing, ways of doing it, but that is the
easiest.
The blue thing is a radio noise suppression capacitor. I would remove it and
see if it made a difference in your radio reception. If so, replace it; if
not, toss it, it is just one more thing to go wrong.
You will also need to re-gap your plugs to get the full benefit of the sports
coil. The optimum value will have to be found by experimentation. I recommend
starting at around 0.35", and increasing the gap incrementaly till the car
misses at high speed. Once a miss is detected, back off the gap to the last
value that didn't cause a miss. Check out the article at:
http://www.vtr.org/maintain/ballast.html
For more info on this.
Dan Masters,
Alcoa, TN
'71 TR6---------3000mile/year driver, fully restored
'71 TR6---------undergoing full restoration and Ford 5.0 V8 insertion - see:
http://www.sky.net/~boballen/mg/Masters/
'74 MGBGT---3000mile/year driver, original condition - slated for a V8 soon
'68 MGBGT---organ donor for the '74
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