Ignition Coil Upgrade

[BigElCat]

This coil made a noticeable improvement in the way my worn B3 runs. Better throttle response, more pick up.

The contacts on my original coil were pretty rusty.

This one has all brass contact locations.

Plus it's Ford Blue, and says "Ford" right on it. Cool!





I should have painted my new master cylinder

[frogman]

How about some more info on the coil. What car/motor was it made for? What mount? What mods to the wiring and how?

Nice clean install.

[daniel_cogar]

every time i paint a master cyl, brake fluid eats it off and it looks worse then before....I got an aluminum one now and just left it alone lol

[denguy]

A few months ago I replaced the original coil in the 88 festy with an Accel model from Advance Auto Parts and it runs a lot better now, seems to have more power. The old one looked like crap and the hole was all detiorated inside.

[BigElCat]

I got an aluminum one now and just left it alone lol

Is that an EGT unit? I wish I had seen the MC upgrade info before I bought this one last winter.

[BigElCat]

How about some more info on the coil. What car/motor was it made for? What mount? What mods to the wiring and how?

Nice clean install.

It's a Ford Duraspark/Duraspark II coil. You can find them on most Ford vehicles from about 1976 to 1984. This one was on a 1980 F150 parts truck I have; cost basically $0.00.

The bracket shown is the original Festiva bracket. Since the pic was taken, I changed the bracket to a chrome universal piece I bought off eBay for $5.88 delivered!

No mods really.

I used quick connect 1/4" female to twin 1/4" male blade electrical connectors. You can buy these little electrical adapters at Walmart or about anywhere. The blue coil has 1/4" brass buttons out the top instead of threaded studs like the Festiva coil.

PS...I lived in Alton when I was a little kid, cool coincidence!

[BigElCat]

Thanks everybody for the interest shown.

The factory high output coils (like this blue one) are said to be about 40k volts output.

The round coils from MSD, Accel, etc don't make any more spark than the factory high energy coils. It's a matter of physical size and number of windings.

The box coils have more windings and produce about 50K volts. Alot of people say the step from 40K to 50K volts at the spark isn't noticeable. The box coils have the potential suck the life out of the ignition module, too, IMHO.

[frogman]

Thanks for the info/write-up.
Alton hasn't changed much. Everything is still up a hill. Most of the old factories are long gone and Winchester is moving to Mississippi.

[chrisofna]

I had an MSD blaster SS coil on my Festiva. Ran pretty good with that.

[scitzz]

Aftermarket coil for the same truck...

http://www.autozone.com/autozone/parts/1980-Ford-F100-1-2-ton-P-U-2WD/Ignition-Coil/_/N-im3rmZ9n80r

[georgeb]

Carbed models only, correct?

[Christ]

Canister coils are all the same dimensions, the brackets for them are universal. The length can vary some depending on the application.

Warning - Informational crap here:

An ignition coil is nothing more than a large quick-charge capacitor. It stores energy from the charging system and releases all the energy stored over time as a single (or multiple, depending on ignition systems) discharge, creating a very high voltage spark (up to 200kV in some cases) from a much smaller input voltage (5-48VDC, usually). It does this via a pair of opposed coils (windings) which cause electrical fields to interact, increasing the voltage while reducing the current.

In simpler terms, Voltage is essentially the driving force, maybe a gear drive, if you will, of electrical current. The higher voltage, the faster it can travel, longer gap it can span, etc.

Amps are the "torque". Higher amperage = more force, stronger current.

V*A=Watt, the overall measure of work able to be completed.

Much in the same way that HP numbers can be calculated from the wheels, accounting for losses in the drivetrain, the wattage always remains the constant in a circuit when A and V change. An increase in A is a similar decrease in V to satisfy the equation.

So as a hypothetical, we'll take a 60kV output 12VDC input ignition coil that draws 40A.

The draw from the battery to the coil is 12V*40A=480w... less than many white label subwoofers.

The coil uses the distance of the windings inside to convert the 12VDC@40A into 60kV output... and the wattage must remain the same (considering a perfect system with no losses)... so 480/60,000=.008, or (eight thousandths) 8mA (milliamps) current.

Still, it's enough to make your arm stiff or induce tachycardia if you get inadvertently shocked by it. I should know, the former has happened to me on several occasions.