[Healeys] Petronix Ignitor

[Bob Spidell]

I called PerTronix this morning and talked to a tech. Alan has it right; a 6-cyl engine can use a 1.5 or 3.0 ohm coil, a 4-cyl needs 3.0ohm impedance (either from the coil, ballast resistor, resistor wire, etc.). I haven't checked my BJ8's coil in years, but IIRC it was around 1-2 ohms. 

According to the tech (Carl) some early Ignitor units didn't have enough internal resistance and could fail with a low (1.5ohm) impedance coil. 'Later' units worked on a low-impedance coil, for 6- or 8-cylinders. So, if you want to run an Ignitor on a 100 best get a 3.0ohm coil (or some combination of coil, resistor, wire, etc. that will produce 3ohms impedance). He also told me Lucas Sports Coils are 3.0ohm, which should make them usable with other electronic points systems (although I've heard of other issues with LSCs). 

I lobbied for them to build a pos-ground version of the Ignitor II, which has automatic dwell adjustment and more flexibility with coils. He said they hadn't even thought of it; but that he'd check with 'the engineers' and get back to me. I don't think this will happen since the II has some internal logic that probably has to run on neg-ground. 

Bob 


-------------------------------- 
Bob Spidell - San Jose, CA 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Simon Lachlan" <simon.lachlan at homecall.co.uk> 
To: healeys at autox.team.net 
Sent: Tuesday, October 4, 2011 7:49:04 AM 
Subject: [Healeys] Petronix Ignitor 

Anyone know how much of the ballast resistor stuff is relevant/necessary to 
a 123 Ignition system. I have one of these fitted to my Mk II BT7 along with 
a Lucas "Sports" coil. (Is it called a "Sports"? It's green and purports be 
higher performance etcetc..) 
Simon