<VV> Ignition Questions

[Tony Underwood]

At 05:05 hours 09/08/2006, Frank DuVal wrote:
>Answer to 3)
>
>Very common on Ford and GM cars. Look for the extra ternminal on the 
>solenoid. The Ford solenoid on the fender will have two small terminals.
>
>Chrysler? Hey Tony!
>
>Frank DuVal
>
>Bob & Kathy Gilbert wrote:
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>
>>My recollection of my LM ignition system is that the coil gets 12 volt with
>>the solenoid on (key in Start position) and then it gets some reduced
>>voltage (key in the On position) as coil voltage is supplied through a wire
>>with a built in resistor.
>>
>>
>>3) Non-Corvair question - was all of the above common practice for North
>>American cars of that era? (I'm trying to diagnose a non-Corvair motor
>>problem)


Yep, Mopars did it too, also used a ballast resister (a rather large 
one ) mounted on the fire wall.  Even when Mopars went to PEI, (the 
source design for the Pertronix system) they still used a large 
ceramic resistor which was bypassed during cranking to "heat up" the 
ignition for a hotter spark, switched to lower voltage once the 
engine started.   My assumption is that since there were no points to 
burn, the dropping resister was there to keep from overheating the 
ignition coil, since the ignition module didn't seem to care whether 
it had 9 or 12 volts on it, far as how hot it got... which was rather 
warm either way.   The Chrysler switching for the ballast resistor 
wasn't on the starter as in GM, but via the starter relay (small, 
looked kinda like a GM horn relay) on the fire wall, courtesy of the 
ignition switch, same voltage that energized the starter relay also 
bypassed the ballast resistor.

Either way, Chryslers used a ballast resistor in both their points 
ignition and first generation electronic ignition, which got bypassed 
during cranking to heat up the spark.


tony..