<VV> Ignitor II update

[corvairs]

And everything you say may very well be true. Now the question is - Is 
this because the Ignitor MUST be wired to a straight 12 volts or is it 
because your electrical system is marginal?

Again, in my case, 450,00+ (conservative) miles of 7 different Corvairs 
all with the Ignitor I wired to the coil - simple. never any problems.

I don't make more money by telling people to wire to thier coil. It 
doesn't hurt me personally if they choose to go to all the extra trouble 
to go straight to 12 volts. Both work, but the easy way only works if 
your final threshold voltage at the Ignitor is minimum or better. If it 
isn't, rather than re-engineering your wiring, why not just fix it?   Lon

www.corvairunderground.com

"Where have all the Corvair owners gone?"

Bill Elliott wrote:

> A few weeks ago, I posted about the Ignitor II now allowing you to 
> hook it up with ballasted voltage to both the Flamethrower II coil and 
> Ignitor II (though the instructions said "for optimal performance, 
> hook both the coil and Ignitor to a full 12v".  Due to the wiring 
> complexities of my Corvair-powered Westy, I opted to go for the easier 
> solution and use the ballasted voltage (also allowing for a quick and 
> easy return to points in case of ignition failure). The VW uses an 
> actual external ballast resistor. Everything appeared to run fine.
>
> Then, as I'm driving it more and more in preparation for my wife's 
> extended trip in this summer, I noticed that it was intermittently 
> dying when you selected reverse. Not the dying you get when the idle 
> is set too high (triggering the vacuum advance) and pulling it into 
> gear retards the timing... nor the dying when the idle is set too 
> slow... but a "turn the key off" death. And it never did it going into 
> drive, just reverse. I was thinking about the neutral safety switch, 
> too much drag from the trans, etc...
>
> As I kept trying to replicate it, it would seldom die. But when I was 
> actually driving it, it would. I started to notice a pattern.... it 
> did it more at night. And it did it when I was parking or leaving a 
> parking spot, but not when I was testing it.
>
> The common thread that I came up with? The power load. At night the 
> headlamps were on. In actually driving the car, my foot was on the 
> brake... in the controlled testing environment in my garage, it was not.
>
> So this led me to surmise that when the headlamps were on and the 
> brake lamps were on, putting the VW in reverse (and lighting up the 
> backup lights) did a momentary drop of the system voltage that (after 
> the ballast resistor) was intermittently below the operating threshold 
> of the Ignitor, causing it to simply turn off.
>
> To test my theory, I rewired around the ballast resistor (leaving 
> everything else just the same), feeding both the coil and Ignitor a 
> full 12V. Since then I have not been able to get the engine to die a 
> single time... either in testing or in actual driving.
>
> As a side effect, the engine starts much easier, idles slightly higher 
> when cold (but not hot?), and has better (apparent) throttle response 
> (though measured acceleration performance did not change).  I just 
> wanted to post these findings in case anyone followed my previous 
> posting.
>
> Now if I could just get the PG shift point up a bit higher (TV lever 
> adjustment maxes out at a 3800rpm shift...)
>
> Thanks!
> Bill
>
>