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[njmattes]

Hello. I'm replacing the coil on my GT6 MkIII (with the ballast wiring rather than the resistor). Upon inspecting the wiring in the car, it appears that the previous owner replaced the solenoid with the wrong part. There's a 3-contact solenoid installed rather than a 4-contact.

If I understand things correctly (which is doubtful), the ballast wiring isn't connected to the coil -- there's a white/yellow wire that should connect the solenoid to the ballast to the coil. But since the solenoid has only 3 contacts, this wire is not connected. With the ignition on, I get about 6.4VDC off the coil, when I crank it, I get about 9.2 -- and when the engine is running, this does not go back down to 6 volts. It remains between 9 and 10. No doubt this is a bad thing.

So my question is this: should I replace the solenoid, and buy a coil that requires a ballast? Or should I leave the wiring as-is, and purchase a 12V coil? It's my understanding that the ballasted coil is supposed to improve cold starting -- and the car starts like a dream. Does anyone have starting issues running a 12V coil without the ballast? I guess it seems unlikely that a 21st century coil would be inferior to a 35 year old wad of corrosion.

If a 12V coil seems to be the way to go, does anyone have any recommendations?

Thanks for your help.
Nathan Matteson

[njmattes]

Eh, so looking further into this conundrum, I think I had everything a bit backwards. I'm thinking that my coil is in fact operating as expected -- except that it's not getting the 12V 'boost' when I start the engine. Originally I had believed it to be running 'hot' at 9V. The more I read about these coils, the more it appears that they can run at 9V rather than 6(?).

And as I try to wrap my head around the schematics, I've come to the conclusion that the white/yellow wire that's not currently connected to the solenoid is the wire that carries the initial 12V starting charge to the solenoid. In other words, I'm thinking that no harm comes from is disconnection, excepting the weaker spark at start-up.

But, here's another question for anyone who might happen along this post: I have one ancient coil whose secondary winding measures 6.8kOhms. Another equally ancient coil whose secondary measures 8.9kOhms. Both primaries are 1.8 - 1.9. Methinks the second coil is in better shape? I'd like to keep running the less junky of the junky coils until I can decide what upgrades I may or may not like to make to the ignition.