SlinktRR
Well-Known Member
I had an interesting new development this week. I have been thinking about taking the car to a local shop that works on all types of muscle cars to see if they could help narrow down the problem. I had not personally used them so I went there to meet the owner and check it out. We talked at length and he mentioned a number of possibilities so I added my name to his list. One of the things he talked about was the ballast resistor creating too much resistance when combined with an internally resisted coil. I checked and the coil on my car is a Pertronix Flamethrower with a 1.50 ohm internal resistor. I searched this forum plus read the Pertronix instruction sheets and it looked like the coil resistance is all I need, so I made a jumper wire and bypassed the OEM ballast. I took it for a ride today and noticed improvement! It starts better and runs a little smoother at slow speeds but there was a big difference at higher speed, where it used to hesitate and fall on its face now it takes off and feels more like it should. Apparently the over-resistance was killing the spark as the rpm increased. I've still got issues and will have this shop take a look but I am now much more encouraged than I was before.
Check it out with a voltmeter. Typically look for 9-10v at the coil positive with ballast. Would be interesting to see how many volts you had without the jumper wire in place.