Thread: Ballast Resistor? or Not?

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Originally Posted by pat mccarthy

if you set it down under 12 volts its never going to 12 or past that . if that was the case your points would burn up ??????????????? IF hei coil is made for NO ballast then it should not need one

wow ha ha uhhh....
No, it's not gonna kill the coil running less than required voltage.
btw my ballast lowers/limits the voltage and DOES increase with rpm to a point.
What can burn a coil is too much current.
like I said 1st off...run what the coil manufacture recommends.

btw don't take general statement and spread it to cover every coil under the sun...We know HEI's take a straight 12 volt lead.

Good luck, i'm out of this from now on.

Originally Posted by 1wild&crazyguy

wow ha ha uhhh....
No, it's not gonna kill the coil running less than required voltage.
btw my ballast lowers/limits the voltage and DOES increase with rpm to a point.
What can burn a coil is too much current.
like I said 1st off...run what the coil manufacture recommends.

btw don't take general statement and spread it to cover every coil under the sun...We know HEI's take a straight 12 volt lead.

Good luck, i'm out of this from now on.

ok yep your the one that did say use a basllast on HEI or did i miss some thing ???? his old coil was for a points dist ?????not hei

Originally Posted by pat mccarthy

ok yep your the one that did say use a basllast on HEI or did i miss some thing ???? his old coil was for a points dist ?????not hei

Yeah as it turns out the old coil was for a points type dist. Which I did not know at the time or until yesterday. Lack of information on package and no instructions. I might have said ballast on hei. Not for the hei, but rather for the coil that may have been designed for it. I think the coil mfg's may not have taken these type dist into account, as they are fairly new. Msd and others have electronic ignition systems with ext coils, but they have control box and their coils are designed for those products. HEI traditionally have the coil in the cap. Even the conversion to run ext coil with stock type HEI were more for using larger coils, that usually have cooling fins, not old style round can coils. And as I am finding out none of the mfg's that I have looked at specifically say that any of their round can coils are for HEI type system. My question was ballast to keep coil from going bad, not for HEI dist. And Mfg's recomendations are surly the way to go, but they probably didn't figure someone would want to use an old sytle coil on one of these dist. There are better coils, but they look like 2010 coils.

And I suppose I am the dumb a##, I never thought of points, I have been running HEI's since about 1977, its only now that I have used one with the external coil, (Size of dist), and wanting to look like an older setup. The thought never occured to me until coil was going out and I started thinking about it.

I believe I have it figured out. And thanks for all the input and recomendatios. There is no point beating a dead horse.