hot ballast resistor and timing with LPG

[jasper110]

is it normal for the ballast resistor on a distributor to get real hot (ie; finger burning) and do you have any suggestions as to where to mount it and the numpty garage fitted it near to the rad. should it be away from the coil?

also what do you set your timing to when using;
3.5 low comp V8 with LPG (i believe its 8deg BTDC at 1000rpm vacuum disconnected and pluged.)

[byron]

is it normal for the ballast resistor on a distributor to get real hot (ie; finger burning) and do you have any suggestions as to where to mount it and the numpty garage fitted it near to the rad. should it be away from the coil?

also what do you set your timing to when using;
3.5 low comp V8 with LPG (i believe its 8deg BTDC at 1000rpm vacuum disconnected and pluged.)


NO!.....it certainely shouldn't get that hot!:o

For running a low comp 3.5 on unleaded 91 RON octane.....setting should be 6 BTDC @ <800 rpm vacuum plugged.;)

But.....LPG will run heaps better with more initial advance than that;) , so.....

set the timing to 12 BTDC @ <800 rpm vacuum plugged;) ......

But then that's too far advanced for 91 RON octane:o , so fill with Ultra Premium 98 RON octane [such as BP Utimate or Shell Ultra etc];)


......a friend of mine has this same engine and that's the way we've found it runs best.:)

[DEFENDERZOOK]

check and make sure you have the right coil......it should say on the coil if it needs a ballast......

[Blknight.aus]

depending on the type of ballast resistor they are ment to get hot as some have a direct voltage/resistance co-efficient so that the more voltage you apply to them the more they resists. If you have one of these and your voltage regulator is set high (14.2v+) it will get hotter as its working harder to drop the voltage back to where the coil needs it to be.

If your resistor is near another hot spot it will get hotter again. It doesnt really matter where Its mounted physically but the shorter you make the wiring run the better of you'll be.

Ive never had one so hot that I couldnt hold it with bare fingers but

[DeeJay]

Not knowing how deep your pockets are...
The best thing for LPG is to fit a good electronic ignition module and a matching coil.
The spark gap is then increased dramatically which gives much better combustion.
Most will not utilize the ballast resistor as they need a good 12v

[Bigbjorn]

In days long gone, I ran 6 volt coil on EH 149 Holden in Showroom Stock racing. System runs 12v at start through the switch and 9(?)v running through the ballast resistor. Never had a coil problem, even when the car was retired to daily driver use. This was normal Kettering ignition. This little beast pulled 6200rpm with stock cam and hydraulic lifters, and could wind the speedo needle out of sight on a long straight. On Valiant Hemis the ballast resistor would be too hot in normal running to hold in bare fingers but lived OK.
Valiants had a very long run of HT cable from the coil through the distributor to nos. 1 & 2 cylinders which, if seriously chasing performance, needed to be shortened to the minimum length possible. Hemis would foul plugs on 1 & 2. Many tuners thought they were sucking oil down the valve guides, which did wear excessively but mostly was fouling through ignition failure. A solution was to use metallic cables on 1 & 2 and carbon leads on the others. The Chrysler electronic ignition put out enough oomph to fire a volcano, but to no avail if it couldn't get to the plug by reason of the cable breaking down and the spark running to earth before the plug gap. In conversions of the Leyland 6 cylinder in P76's to Hemis, you had to move the coil from the inner guardto the engine to remove a couple of feet of HT cable, otherwise you had a miss on 1 & 2 due solely to the long run of high resistance carbon lead. Check everything from battery through coil and distributor to plug. Resistance, volts, clean tight joints,, lengths, etc. Most petrol engine problems are ignition system related.