Hot Ballast Resistor

[steve hess]

Re: Hot Ballast Resistor

So... How much damage would be done to the ballast resistor or the coil in this situation, Ignition on, points closed, engine off. In other words how long would it take to fry one or the other? Worst yet could it make them marginal to a point where performance suffers, but is hard to detect?

[steve hess]

Re: Hot Ballast Resistor

So... How much damage would be done to the ballast resistor or the coil in this situation, Ignition on, points closed, engine off. In other words how long would it take to fry one or the other? Worst yet could it make them marginal to a point where performance suffers, but is hard to detect?

[John M.]

Re: Hum.....

Jack, you are absolutely correct, and I did not mean to imply that the resistor disipated 100w under normal conditions. I simply meant to point out that in the points closed, coil saturated static mode, that pretty close to 100w was being disipated. This can sure make that baby cook! John

[John M.]

Re: Hum.....

Jack, you are absolutely correct, and I did not mean to imply that the resistor disipated 100w under normal conditions. I simply meant to point out that in the points closed, coil saturated static mode, that pretty close to 100w was being disipated. This can sure make that baby cook! John

[Ed Jennings]

Re: Hot Ballast Resistor

Many years ago I had a 65 in the shop getting something worked on with the car on a lift. The guy who put the car on the lift forgot to turn off the ignition. The points were apparently closed. In about 5 minuets there was an explosion under the hood and a lot of smoke. They hurridly lowered the car and found that the coil had exploded. The ignition shielding was on the car, so it minimized the damage. Even so, there was black, tary, gook everywhere!

[Ed Jennings]

Re: Hot Ballast Resistor

Many years ago I had a 65 in the shop getting something worked on with the car on a lift. The guy who put the car on the lift forgot to turn off the ignition. The points were apparently closed. In about 5 minuets there was an explosion under the hood and a lot of smoke. They hurridly lowered the car and found that the coil had exploded. The ignition shielding was on the car, so it minimized the damage. Even so, there was black, tary, gook everywhere!

[Jack H.]

Re: Hot Ballast Resistor

This is exactly why there was controversy in '63 over 091 coil and 0.3-ohm ballast vs. 087 coil and 1.8-ohm ballast. You can 'cook' the points leaving the ignition switch in ON position for long periods of time. The NCRS judging field is such a place....

The tradeoff (prior to electronic ignition) was a reduction in 'hot spark' at high RPM. Guess designers/marketeers figured if you could afford a Corvette and wanted to drive a high performance vehicle, you could also afford a decreased tune-up interval.

[Jack H.]

Re: Hot Ballast Resistor

This is exactly why there was controversy in '63 over 091 coil and 0.3-ohm ballast vs. 087 coil and 1.8-ohm ballast. You can 'cook' the points leaving the ignition switch in ON position for long periods of time. The NCRS judging field is such a place....

The tradeoff (prior to electronic ignition) was a reduction in 'hot spark' at high RPM. Guess designers/marketeers figured if you could afford a Corvette and wanted to drive a high performance vehicle, you could also afford a decreased tune-up interval.

[John H.]

That's Why....

There's an "Accessory" position on the ignition switch - powers up the whole car except the coil feed; leaving the ignition "on" is a bad idea, worse if the points happen to be closed.

[John H.]

That's Why....

There's an "Accessory" position on the ignition switch - powers up the whole car except the coil feed; leaving the ignition "on" is a bad idea, worse if the points happen to be closed.