ballast non ballast 12 v ballast?
Turbo Mini Forums

i have placed a electronic dizzy ( comming out a '91 1275engine with the module on the side) in a 998 mini to get rid of the contact breaker points. now the mini had a coil running on 12 v ( straight from the fuse box so not the pinck/white resistor wire) and it is running that coil for years on that old distributer.

but the problem is that i'm not sure if it is really fit for that setup? i had some runs in it but never more than 10 miles and now it has to do the imm... i really dont like to see that car on the side of the road with a cooking coil or so. i have some spare but the label says "12 v ballasted ignition only) just cant get my head round ballasted non ballasted... the coil on there now has no labels. just an old dented greyish metal looking coil.

you can do anything if you set your mind to it...
i rather blow it up winning than keep it together losing.

finish date set for project 1... march 2018

For electronic ignition you want a non ballast coil and a 12v feed. Replace the pink/white with just a similar sized length of wire to remove the resistance and then fit a non ballast coil.

Also we went on a 30 mile run recently, one of the cars there had an electronic distributor and a ballast feed and coil, the car broke down, I tried to help diagnose the problem to find there was no spark, checked the points to find out is was a replacement electronic kit and then felt the coil, it was ridiculously hot and had obviously burned out.

The pink and white has been removed an replaced ages ago. Like said it runs a 12 v feed straight from the fusebox. And thats what I'm afraid of. Burning out that coil. But since it ran 12 v for years now ( on that ballasted lucas with points) im not sure if that means it will keep on running on that non ballasted electronic one...

you can do anything if you set your mind to it...
i rather blow it up winning than keep it together losing.

finish date set for project 1... march 2018

If the coil is a non ballast one, it will be fine. I ran a ballast coil with a ballasted feed and coupled to a britpart 45d electronic points replacement kit, and it worked beautifully with absolutely no reliability issues. I wouldn't mix a non ballast feed with a ballast coil or the other way around though.

But when you know if its ballast non ballast etc.

you can do anything if you set your mind to it...
i rather blow it up winning than keep it together losing.

finish date set for project 1... march 2018

I can't remember the source of info but you can measure the resistance of the coil to find out if it's ballast or non ballast. Could have been a youtube vid!

You want a DLB198

I ran a non-ballast coil on a ballast supply for a long time without realising when I swapped my standard 998 A+ coil for a 1275 gold coil that I was given. I noticed one day that the coil was getting red hot! Which I now understand is the main symptom of having the wrong type of coil in use on a ballast supply.

Not sure about the signs of a ballast coil on a non ballast supply however, there's probably a certain level of resistance across the terminals that tells you which is which.

i found on the web that 3 ohm is an electro coil and 1 to 1.5 ohm should be a ballast coil. i have 3.6 ohm

you can do anything if you set your mind to it...
i rather blow it up winning than keep it together losing.

finish date set for project 1... march 2018