Is it possible(better yet have any of you fellas done this!) Use TWO coils on a V-8 engine? I think it might look pretty cool but not sure about any performance increase. Could it be wired in series and have one coil serve one side of the engine and the other coil....the other! The triple master cylinders look pretty slick on the fire wall sooo dual coils should be eye candy too! 6sally6
This will work and you can do it with VW or Pinto parts. I did, No you can't run one coil into the other. You need two distributors. Built into one housing. (Old and expensive) Or two newer four cylinder distributors. Or for what you want, Just put another coil on the firewall with wires going nowhere.
"RichFox" made the proper point - You cannot do it with a regular distributor unless it is a dummy just for looks. You need two sets of points, each set to alternately energize the respective coils. Then you need a special distributor cap that has two towers to connect the secondary leads from the coils, and a special rotor that will work with that cap. Mallory made a a version of their "Flashfire" coil that had two secondary windings and one primary winding which exited from the coil from just one secondary terminal, but they are no longer in production and are almost impossible to find. I have often wondered if you could get by with two coils driven by a dual point distributor (with the two sets of points disconnected from each other) that had their secondary leads spliced together and feeding a regular distributor cap and rotor. I suspect there may be some electronic feedback between the coils that would be a problem, that could probably be solved by adding a diode, but I will leave that up to the electronic geniuses. By the way "RichFox", I will take this opportunity to tell you I am impressed with the dual distributor setup every time I see it. It shows some original thinking and it has an added mechanical factor (gears, etc.) that I have always liked.
Same idea as the Spalding Flame thrower/Roto Phase dual coil. Just cheaper easier gears, I did do one for a Chevy V6 engine. Used three cylinder outboard motor distributors. Each fired one bank, On the Plymouth four I was interested in what difference twin plugs would make. But I liked the bling too.
I modified a Grant Spalding to work on a Cadillac Flathead. One of the two "distributor caps" had a crack through the center of it so......... ...... I made a reservoir with masking tape and stuck a couple of fiberglass rods (sections of fishing pole) into the reservoir for strength..... ....then flooded the reservoir with epoxy. I haven't installed it on the motor yet, but should have it up and running later this fall.
And of course there is always the Harmon Collins dual point/dual coil for the flathead V8. It basically turn the engine into 2 - 4 cylinders.
Saw a home built dual coil set up on an 8BA flatty at the Jelopy Jam Up a few years ago. I believe the car was from Ohio.
Running a Harmon Collins with .36 mfd magneto condensers on a supercharged 59ab flathead. Benefits include increased dwell time and no point bounce. Delivers strong spark at 7,000rpm on my Sun Distributor machine. Using two Bluestreak ACC 560-12 Super Coils. Just completed the Midwest Roadster Run yesterday, 300 miles, in the rain, with no issues.
I put an H-C distributor on my high school flathead back in 1959.....used two '48 Ford coils.......used it for 3-1/2 years without any problems......
You can use 8 ignition coils, one straight to each plug. You just need a way to trigger each one of them, which could be solved in a number of different ways.
I have vague memories of a picture from the 1980's, of a distributor body, with eight sets of points on it, triggering eight coils. Ring a bell for anyone?
On the road to El Mirage in an alfalfa field is Roline 805 cid V8 irrigation motor and pump. It has 8 conventional coils of the 50s style and 8 sets of points staked up in front of the crank snout. Lost spark every other revolution. Ran on natural gas from a pipe in the ground Had a cast iron pan with a float in ti connected to an oil drum. Oil gets low, opens up and adds oil on the run. Muffler about the size of a water heater. Pretty cool I thought, Sitting next to it an electric motor driving the pump. Ypu could probably get the Roline for the asking.
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