sbc gurus before I burn the 55 to the ground

You might wanna check the end play, that can also give you fits as well. Just a thought... Bowtie40

 

Forget summit. You do need a ballast resistor on the coil.... I can post the wiring again if you need. The pertronix unit does not need the ballast just the coil.
Now when you have a worn motor or one that is fouling plugs?(running rich)You need to go colder on the plug not hotter. I dont think there are many times that you go hotter thats and old wives tale. Colder gets the plug out of the chamber and wont foul.

 

I see this all day with the vortec chevy motors at work. The distributor starts getting way too much side to side slop causing erratic spark. Check your distributor, ill bet you figure it out quick.

 

Still have the problem? You mentioned excessively hot coil - they do get hot - in my post #9 i mentioned two different coils, the .6ohm for points style and the other 1.5(i think) for electronic ignitions. If you have the .6ohm coil then the current draw wouldn't have the proper resistance and current flow excessive: ie high heat. You can put a resister in the circuit or a different coil, both do same thing.
Another mentioned to go colder on the plug. I wouldn't do that, the colder plug is more likely to foul. The plugs' heat range indicates how it deals with heat, a hot plug leaves heat in the engine and a cold plug removes it via the water jacket. If you are fouling plugs now then with a colder plug you won't hardly get out of your garage.
One other place to look beside the ignition. I would have a looksee at the idle circuit of the carbs. If they are stopped up then you'll have a hateful time trying to putt around. The idle restricors are at the bottom of small br*** tubes that are in the fuel well and fed from the primary main jet. Old fuel from sitting over the winter can gum these up (you've got 4 of them on a tunnell ram) and these are critical in your situation because the total fuel that the engine sees while putting about is what comes thru the booster +idle ckt fuel, the idle circuit is always dumping fuel! The fuel signal in a tr isn't as great as a single 4bbl so that the respective fuel from each carb is about half of total, and then if you remove the amount provided by the idle circuits then you won't have near enough fuel for the motor. A good clue that you might have an idle fuel problem is did you have to adjust the carbs? Maybe more than a 'tweek'? Have to adjust both idle richness and throttle blade angle (idle speed)?
Just some thoughts, good luck oj

 

just got off the phone with pertronix and was told no ballast resistor is needed. When I described the problem, he thinks maybe low voltage in the ignition somewhere is causing the problems. He also said that the coils can reach 250 degrees so that's why I about burned the **** outta my hand. Never saw a coil get that hot.Carbs are fine, idle circuits too.So I"ll get out the meter and start testing and see where I end up this time. Damn, summers almost over and I'm still screwing with this

 

I tend to dissagree with Pertronics. If your running a coil that required a ballast resister with points, then it needs a ballast resistor no matter what your triggering it with. All American 12V points systems required a ballast resistor. At least all I've dealt with. I build my own HEI conversions out of point type distributors and I like to use the chrome stock looking ACCEL Super coil. They are designed to work with 12V and do not require a ballast resistor. Maybe what pertronics was refering to is that their unit does not require a ballast resistor with no reference to the coil. All HEI units require a 12v power source to work the triggering system. This means that if your using a ballast resistor on the coil then the power wire for the electronics just be hooked up the the 12V side of the ballast resistor not the reduced voltage side.

 

Our Tech guy was correct about coil temperature, they will get hot enough to practically burn you. He was also correct about no ballast resistor when using a PerTronix module.
If you have the Ignitor 1 you should be using a 1.5 ohm coil for optimum performance, although it will run with a 3 ohm. If you are using an Ignitor II, then you want a .6 ohm coil. And If you have the new Ignitor III use a .32 ohm coil. With all of the module's they want to see 12v constant when running, not the 7 or so that a ballast resistor will bring it down to.
Also how do you have your coil mounted? Is it horizontal or vertical? If it is horizontal it could be getting overly hot due to the windings not being fully covered in oil, depending on orientation.

 

You stated that you were running a tunnelram so I am going to ***ume you have mounted the coil somewhere other than the stock location. Is the coil mounted vertical or horizontal? The older coils where designed to mounted vertical so oil in them would keep the windings covered in oil,mounting them horizontal can cause the windings to be partially uncovered by the oil and creating "hot spots" leading to coil failure.
In regards to ballast resistors,they were used to prolong the life of the points by reducing the voltage going to the coil and points when the key was in the "on" position. On the old chevy's there was a wire that went from the starter solenoid to the + side of the coil that sent 12 volts to the coil when the key switch was in the "start" position. This was to help the car to start by temporarly increasing voltage to the coil and thus creating a hotter spark for starting. When the key switch was returned to the "on" position the 12 volts from the key switch was reduced by the ballast resistor( to about 9 volts if memory is correct) to the coil and points for normal running. The old style points would not last very long if they used 12 volts all the time. This is one of reasons for electronic ignitions(a**** others),you can run 12 volts on the coil full time thus a hotter spark full time.

 

Your getting some real bad info here. I may not be a Senior member but i am a senior seller and installer of pertronix units(35 years) . Also colder plugs are allways used in high Po and used up motors.Hotter heat range mean nothing about heat only that they reach deeper in to the mixture of the chamber ...which you really dont want. Colder plugs are not colder either just a bit shorter to get the plug out of the mixture or oil foul.If anybody has a racing background they will sit you down and teach you this.
The pertronix unit it self does not need a resistor but your coil does.
Hey have fun i tried. Lots of bad info out there about pertronix but i have them in everthing from fork lifts boats cars trucks tractors and a few tree spraying rigs. They just flat work well even if the dissy is completely worn out.

 

Very correct...i love seeing upside down coils with the oil running out. But and old point coil will burn up sooner or later with no ballast.

 

grounding.
old mechanic taught me to ground everything, motor, body, trans, everything to the frame using 0 or 1 gauge wire.

 

pretty confusing at the very least. First off it is the Pertronix ignitor kit in the old style points dizzy with the Pertronix oil filled coil to match the dizzy unit at 1.5 ohm primary resistance. The one thing I guess I did wrong is that it's mounted horizontally NOT vertically and that will change. Trust me I don't disbelieve any of the info I'm getting, but I need to get it right this time. ( running short on funds for parts). I'll try taking out the hotter plugs and put back in the ACs where I started and see what that does. Pertronix tells me that they want the coil to get full shot. The accel Super stock coil in there now runs at 1.2 ohms and according to pertronix is perfectly ok to run. That said, I may have killed the damn thing by not mounting it correctly. I t may have taken the last year or so to do it in as I don't drive the car that much. I dunno guys, at this point I'm kinda shootin in the dark and grabbin at straws

 

ok, so far I've gone through and tested wiring from the battery out to everything, added 2 more grounds to frame and body, gone through both carbs, dizzy and replaced dist. cap, replaced coil and replaced spark plugs again.Checked for any loose wiring connections. Still have lots of fire at the plugs and she fires right up after only turning over once. We've been through the valve train too make sure everything is working ok and its still missing big time. I also have about a 1/2 gallon of kerosene and a itchy finger on my lighter. I'm just about ready to give up on it for this year and let it sit til spring unless it goes up in smoke

 

I know I may catch **** for rehashing info others and yourself have posted but here it goes.

Pertronix modules are sensitive to excessive dizzy cam end play... worn shaft bushings can effect the air gap enough to cause a Pertronix module to fail to pick up a lobe. Check that out.

Rotor phasing with a replacement pickup can be thrown off so the rotor is off the cap post enough to cause misfire and coil failure due to an excessively large spark gap between the rotor tip and cap post. That type of failure will usually accrue more at a high or low rpm due to centrifugal advance sweeping the rotor phasing one way or the other depending on whether the rotor is leading or lagging the post. Rotor phasing while static or at idle before the advance starts to kick in, the center of the rotor tip should lag behind the cap post. Can be checked static it need be.

It does it cold and hot? Regardless of manifold pressure or torque loading it still misses?

 

Rich...want a small cap hei?!?! Just ordered a new module for my mallory... Trade ya for the axle! hahaha.... If you want it it's yours...Joe

 

btw..tunnel is back on too. :-0