Ballast resistor or none?

[trim]

Waking at 3AM questioning my "brilliance" of yesterdays removal of the ballast resistor and replacing with a coil with the same resistance built in... is looking like "dumbass" instead!
69 RR 383 4spd. Upgraded to electronic ignition and trying to hide the orange box and new ballast resistor (not original looking) under the radiator overflow bottle. Have a new harness and I'm trying to make reworking it as easy as possible to accomplish this..... so, comes the "brilliance" move.......(less work on the harness), until 3AM that is.
This will eliminate the extra voltage to the coil during the "start" position of the ignition switch which bypasses the ballast resistor and be the same as in the "run" position of the ignition switch. Now we have the big question..... will it work? Even with the electronic ignition will the lack of the extra voltage to the coil during the "start" position of the ignition switch cause the engine NOT to start, hard start ?? Is this just a totally bad idea? Anybody venture an opinion? :confused:

 

[bigblock]

Should work fine.I have not tried it on my Mopars,but all the tractors I've converted work great.

 

[67 coronet]

extra spark at start up is just to make starting easyer.try it without and see how it does.some are fine,some dont like it.all depends on the eng tune.

 

[Kern Dog]

I had a friend help me with a rewire job on the Charger. During it all, he wanted to eliminate the ballast resistor. He had the belief that the resistor was only important in a "points type" system. That didn't make sense to me since they obviously kept it after the switch to electronic ignition. I asked around about it and 90 % of the people said the resistor should stay. The rationale was that the ballast allowed the coil to run cooler. Taking it out could likely result in an overheated coil.

 

[bigaadams]

the ballast is there to regulate the current of the coils based on available voltage after the drop...(ohms law) the coil will over heat to no end if no resistor is used..with a coil marked for external resistor..the internal resistor coils get a hot spark for tad longer after initial start and taper down based on the heat of the coil as the higher current flows through as it is here the resistor is now located..

 

[bm02tj]

the voltage in your system when running is between 13.6 and 14.6 depending on temperature
and when you are starting the car it is 8 to 10 volts more or less depending on weather and how good your battery is

so leave it in and hook up higher voltage for start

 

[Cornpatch MO]

the ballast is there to regulate the current of the coils based on available voltage after the drop...(ohms law) the coil will over heat to no end if no resistor is used..with a coil marked for external resistor..the internal resistor coils get a hot spark for tad longer after initial start and taper down based on the heat of the coil as the higher current flows through as it is here the resistor is now located..

Thanks for the info. I use coils that say "no external resister needed" . I never knew how they work, so I understand that they have an internal resister and what it does. I have used this coil with Pertronix conversion for about 7 years now, and it works great!. Funny but MSD tech could not tell me if a Blaster coil needed a resister or not??????..........................MO

 

[Sonny Black]

Waking at 3AM questioning my "brilliance" of yesterdays removal of the ballast resistor and replacing with a coil with the same resistance built in... is looking like "dumbass" instead!
69 RR 383 4spd. Upgraded to electronic ignition and trying to hide the orange box and new ballast resistor (not original looking) under the radiator overflow bottle. Have a new harness and I'm trying to make reworking it as easy as possible to accomplish this..... so, comes the "brilliance" move.......(less work on the harness), until 3AM that is.
This will eliminate the extra voltage to the coil during the "start" position of the ignition switch which bypasses the ballast resistor and be the same as in the "run" position of the ignition switch. Now we have the big question..... will it work? Even with the electronic ignition will the lack of the extra voltage to the coil during the "start" position of the ignition switch cause the engine NOT to start, hard start ?? Is this just a totally bad idea? Anybody venture an opinion? :confused:

yep,Upgraded to electronic ignition try to keep mine looking original I hide the orange box, under dash.