<VV> Electronic distributor update

[Smitty]

Smitty Says;  Seth’s post followed by Mike’s warning concerning pulling coil wires raised some interesting points.  If you have a runaway engine, what can you do to stop it without killing yourself.  I have had two runaway events.  One with a stock ignition engine and one with an extreme HEI ignition.  Stopping the stocker was simple.  Just jerk the coil wire out of the distributor.  Just a typical spark plug jolt to the hand and it was over.  The HEI was a different story.  When the wire came out of the distributor cap it slid through my hand leaving a row of RF burns and backing me 6 ft away from the car.  It would have been safer to have pulled the wire out of the coil, but as Seth said, that’s not a good idea either.  The spark will carbon track the nose of the coil or can jump the windings of the coil and destroy it.
        The question in my mind is, what could be constructed to make an emergency shutoff.  If opening the primary circuit can burn out the module and opening the secondary (High Voltage) can hurt you and the equipment as well,  is there a way to shut a runaway down quickly?