Ignition coil –ballasted or not

I am running a 3.5 rover V8 from a 1988 range rover efi in the viento. I am a bit confused on the issue of ballasting the coil.

At the moment I have made up my own engine loom and just have a 12v supply to the coil. Everything works fine but the coil is very old and I am going to replace it along with the dissy cap.

Do I just go to the motor factors and get a coil for the above range rover or do I need to ensure the coil is a 12v non ballasted type.

Paul

It may make a difference if your car has electronic ignition or points? With points you probably need a ballast resistor coil, with electronic you need an coil suitable for electronic ignition

Its electronic ignition ..

So Ill just get one of the original type from the motor factors ..

another question - Do I need some sort of CONDENSER to avoid radio interferance?

Cant say I have ever seen a suppressor fitted to electronic ignition . As electronic systems dont like "noise" they may be internally suppressed. You won't hear a radio in the car anyhow. If you are worried about interfering with nieghbours TV /radio try running the car near yours and see if you get any. The alternator may benefit from a suppressor if you get a screaming on TV/radio. IIRC it is a legal requirement that a car causes no interference?

Cheers..

Paul

The need for a ballast resistor is dependent upon the dizzy you use. I am using a Mallory dizzy and therefore it has be have a ballast resistor (to drop it to 6v). I cannot remember the full explanation of why but it is something to do with the coil and if you don't use the resistor it produces too much spark and burns things like points/electronics out more quickly.

Also. make sure you use the correct ballast resistor and coil for you dizzy. If you don't it can reduce performance and the life of the components. I was using a lucas ballast resistor and coil with my mallory dizzy and I was getting missfires (although these worked perfectly with Rover Dizzy), changed to a mallory ballast resistor and coil and it is perfect now

Cheers

Mark

Look for the markings on the side of the distributor body.

A 35DE8 (OPUS) distributor has the electronics inside but still required a ballast resistor (on the original setup). Later units (35DM8 & 35DLM8) with the black box on the side of the dizzy or under the coil, didn't.

If you have the points distributor (35D8) then it originally had a ballast resistor