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Post by swiftab on Apr 10, 2006 21:09:23 GMT -5
I have am putting a 440 out of a '78 truck in my '69 Coronet. The 440 has electronic ignition so is the ballast resistor still required?
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Post by Judson Hudson on Apr 11, 2006 20:38:22 GMT -5
I believe the answer is yes. I'm not all knowledgable, but from what I've been reading over on other forums, most people have ballast resistors with their electronic ignitions.
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Post by chatt69chgr on Mar 30, 2008 12:02:00 GMT -5
If you had bought the kit Chrysler sells that includes a orange box ECU, distributor, and ballast, you would have got a 1-ohm ballast. It's the white one that is hump backed and has two terminals. I think this ECU is the same as the production ECU's (4 terminal). My understanding is that the sensor in the distributor is tied to an amplifier in the ECU that fires the transistor mounted on it thus connecting the coil to ground which causes the coil, which is an autotransformer, to produce the high voltage for the plug. Chrysler intends for you to use the std production coil with this ballast resistor. I understand that the purpose of the ballast with the ECU is simply to hold the coil current to something around 8 amperes. Now if you use the black blaster coil that Mopar sells, then they tell you to use their 1/4 ohm ballast. It's the two terminal one with the metal band around it and it's not hump backed. You can also order these from Rock Auto or buy at Autozone for around $5. I found one for sale on the Mancini site that has the original part number on the band for $35. I will tell you that I ordered the Mopar 1/4 ohm ballast from my local dealer and got this big blocky thing with two screw terminals on it which was at least 4 times bigger than the one in the pictures you will find at Mopartsracing and Summit. I think it was for early 60's mechanical advance distributors and was rated at 200-Watts. Came from Chrysler's Atlanta whse so if your dealer didn't have one you could look at you better be sure you can reject it if it isn't the correct one. I would note that I don't really know what the "correct" ballast was for the old points distributor in 1969. I have been told that it looked like the 1/4 ohm unit with the metal band (the smaller one). And numerous pictures on the web seem to verify this. Whether it was really 1/4 ohm I don't know. But since the 69 vehicles didn't come with a ECU and you are adding one to a 69 vehicle, then you are already "incorrect" as it were so it shouldn't really matter about the ballast except that it should be correct for the coil as I mentioned above. If anyone else has knowledge on this subject, feel free to chime in. Forgot to say that I really don't know anything about the 4-terminal ballasts except to say that they have two ballast resistors in one case and are used with the 5 terminal ECU.
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bullitt99
Junior Member
Coming to ya Down a Dusty Road
Posts: 50 
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Post by bullitt99 on Apr 1, 2008 7:36:35 GMT -5
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