If you've seen my F100 project you know I'm running a Duraspark II system on a later model 302 in it. I've got a chrome accel coil and an accel ballast resistor inline, but the coil still gets hot enough to concern me...like I-don't-want-to-touch-it hot. Runs great now that I've sorted out the duraspark issue with the intermittent pickup/stator, but that coil still gets awfully hot. Any ideas? For now, I'm just carrying a spare coil!
Put the spare on and see if it gets hot. Only Accel piece I ever owned was a new dual point distributor in the '70's. Put it on a distributor machine to check the dwell and several of the cylinders were off by as much as 3 degrees. Cheap junk, IMO.
Also...could this be a ground path problem? Don't know much about transistors and such, but seems to me coil's circuit still has to reach ground somehow in its make and break cycle...so with new gasket, freshly painted engine, etc. could distributor be inadequately grounded?
I wonder how hot the coils in my cars get? I never have touched one with the engine running, that I can remember. Maybe you should no worry about it..unless maybe there's smoke coming off it, or the paint is getting discolored, or something. How about using an IR temp gun and seeing what the temperature is? We could check ours, and compare
put the Ford spec coil on it ( one made for the unit ) , them units make a heck of a spark and need to be a matched set up . back in the 80s we had people try to run aftermarket coils on them and burned the amplifier and coils up .
Got to have the correct resistance . Amps = heat and the accel more than likely is low resistance . Need a coil with a minumum of 1.5 ohm resitance. Check out the factory resistance on a Dura spark coil ( it changed every year they made it). Many of todays chrome coils are very cheap off shore units and have the lower resistance thus the heat......
and the proper way to do the ford coils is you have to have the color of the duraspark unit . ( the potting color determines what unit you have )
Yes. Well, went and left the spare at my dad's place. Will try that next time. Good point, Bruce. I've been very careful to scrape/sand all ground connections throughout the truck, so hopefully it's all good. Haha...yes, I think I'm overthinking and worrying too much about a new build! Just hopped in after getting it running and went on 175 mile trip...in the dark...with no tools. Confidence!!! (or stupidity) Yeah, it's a standard blue strain relief... But the duraspark coils are ugly. Thanks for the inputs guys. I'm now having cooling issues...too cool = no heat out of the heater. Blocked half the radiator last night and still too cool!
Put the coil inside the car and blow the fan across it. Just kidding. You are sure that ignition is supposed to have a ballast resistor? Check your thermostat.
have coil mounted upright (vertical)? being on it's side (horizontal) can cause some coils to heat up. are you running a thermostat (working?) in your motor? what temp?
Coil is upright - I believe it's a 190* high flow stat. It's also a brand new aluminum radiator that holds 4+ gallons!!
The Jalopy Journal
