<VV> Secondary voltage at coils.(Was Bad Corvair)

[BobHelt at aol.com]

Hi Daniel,
There are couple of variables that have not been discussed.  First thing is 
that there are two different Pertronix I coils and only one will  really do 
the job. You may have the wrong one. You must check this. Get a  quality 
multimeter and read the coil's primary winding resistance. It MUST be in  the 
neighborhood of 1.5 ohms (spec is 1.35 to 1.42 ohms) if you have the ballast 
 wiring in the coil's circuit. Next is the fact that the Pert II coil is 
designed  to run on 12 volts, so you must remove the ballast resistance for 
this coil's  hookup.
 
Now how are you measuring the spark voltage? I think your  problem is that 
you have the engine running when you do this measuring. That is  a problem. 
What happens when the engine is running, is that the high voltage  builds up 
to a peak voltage until the plug fires. The plug is designed to  fire at a 
MUCH lower voltage than what the coil and electronics can produce. So  the 
system is capable of producing, say 25 KV, but the plug fires at say 5KV.  
That STOPS the voltage build up. That is likely what you are  measuring. The 
25KV is a safety margin to allow good plugs to fire at  5KV and fouled plugs 
to still fire at say, 20 KV so the engine will still run  OK. So 5KV at idle 
would be normal but not indicative of system  performance.
 
Let us know what you find.
 
Regards,
Bob Helt
 
 
In a message dated 10/18/2012 7:04:43 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time,  
dmonasterio at hotmail.com writes:

This  topic lead me to coils secondary voltage using Pertronix.I've found 
that, with  Pertronix II and it's matching Flame Thrower coil can't get more 
than 8 KV at  idle but, it increases at high rpm, to more than 20 KV.With 
Pertronix I and  std. coil, get about 10 KV at idle and about 15 KV at more 
than 2,000 rpm.  Didn't checked with points.On simple words, Pertronix I makes 
passing exhaust  emissions tests (less HC at idle) better than with 
Pertronix II but, I'm still  concerned, on both cases, about 
the different voltages between idle and  high rpm as, I supposed that on 
this electronic devices the coil output  voltage shouldn't be affected by 
speed (excepting 0 rpm).
Daniel  MonasterioJust trying to learn a bit  more