Putting in an order for a rebuild kit for the HIF44 so figured I would get a few other parts as well. It does not appear you can get the blue points for the 45d right now, which is what mine has always had, and if I am understanding right the red wont work in my dizzy that uses the blue. So I started looking at the electronic versions. Mini Spares has their own version of an electronic that is supposedly decent enough and fairly cheap so figured I would give one a go for less than $100.
That got me curious what coil I have since it seems to matter more if you go electronic. So I went out to Ohm it and it reads as a 0.9 ohm coil, which I thought was odd because I do not have a ballasted system and I thought I bought a higher ohm coil. I pulled it out of the bracket so I could see the label and it says it is a Flame Thrower 3.0 ohm coil. I measured the old lucas gold coil I replaced as I thought it was giving me trouble and it measured 2.5ohm so I think my meter is working, seems like the Lucas should maybe be around 3 ohm?
Can a coil degrade like that or do they just generally stop working completely?
Obviously I would buy a new coil to use with the electronic dizzy, but perhaps this coil only reading .9 ohm is part of my issue with running like crap? It's a couple years old now but has barely been run since I have had so many tuning issues.
points use a 1 ohm coil, electronic dizzys need a 3 ohm......
What ohm coil you need seems to highly depend on what electronic dizzy you run.....at least that is what I have been seeing looking at the various options.
The Mini Spares branded electronic one I was thinking about using says to use a 0.9 ohm coil, even links specifically to it from the dizzy page. Most of the retrofit kits seem to want a higher ohm coil like you suggest but not all, some just say anything over 1.5, While the 123 doesn't seem to care what coil you use, anything will work apparently.
That's why I am so damn confused. Then throw in the ballast or no ballast and all the math changes because of the ohms the ballast presents.
Still have no idea why my supposed 3ohm coil is only .9 ohm. Maybe its been that way since I got it, and it was just mislabeled.
I want to say I've read they can go bad and give lower readings but don't quote me on that. Anytime I change distributors I have to do mental work figuring out which ohm coil to use.
I don't know a lot about coils/distributers in general so it is definitely confusing. I have read so much over the last two days on it I think I have confused myself even more instead of making it more clear. :embarrassed: I am going to guess my 3ohm coil reading at .9 ohms is probably not a good thing so it needs to be replaced regardless.
I think I am just going to go with the fairly cheap Mini Spares version, as it specifically says what coil to use and they claim the curve is good enough for up to a 276 profile cam. Always skeptical of these sorts of curve claims but I figure it will be at least as good as the Yellow Aldon on the car now which is probably good enough for now. At some point I may splurge for a programable 123 if I decide to do a EFI/Turbo setup some day.
Thanks for the input guys.
On another note, do you guys have issues with the Tach when running an electronic dizzy? Seems like this might be an issue on the old Smiths units at least, which is of course what I have.
No issues with tachs.
I always buy flamethrower coils from Amazon or jeggs ect when I replace coils.
Ive had good results with the Pertronics kit that came paired with a matching Flame Thrower 3.0 ohm coil.
Good to know, I saw that Mini Mania of all places had the pertronix retrofit kit for the 45d dizzy on sale. Like really on sale, it was actually cheaper than buying it anywhere else. Never seen that before.
It was cheap enough I may get one to put on the Aldon dizzy I have as a backup. Have just heard a lot of good and bad about them, especially the newer igniter 2 version which is the one that is really discounted.
I bought from an outfit in Austin, Texas Called Hot spark - 1/2 the cost of Pertronix (at the time) and it looks like they both buy from the same supplier - I couldn't tell any difference and it worked just fine
https://hot-spark.com/
https://www.hot-spark.com/1-Lucas-Distributors.htm
Nice! Thanks for the link Dave, I am going to check this out for sure.
I bought the generic Mini Spares electronic distributor about five or six years ago. At that time it was under $75 if I'm remembering correctly. The electronic dizzy works great for my unmodified 1275. Sorry, but I don't remember which new coil I used when I installed the distributor.
I do remember having to remove or bypass the OEM Mini long ballast wire in the wiring loom. On my 1988 Mini the ballast wire stretched up all the way to near the firewall inside the wiring loom.
That's what I did on pretty much all my new engine builds, just bought the Spares Electronic dizzy, it was cheaper than just buying a Pertronix!