Reply To: Induction Coil

When a car is difficult to start, and or misfires, and or does not seem to pull well, typically folks will  immediately start tearing their car apart. First up…. do you have  copper cored plug leads ? Yes –  then carry on checking everything. If not that may well be your problem right there.

Copper cored plug leads do not break down, they always and forever  deliver the  HT full voltage  from the coil and they are dead easy to fit. The cheap modern option is  – in essence –  a cotton/graphite core to the plug lead that gradually breaks down. The full voltage from the coil is therefore not delivered and all manner of running problems ensue. In extremis and  if really knackered;  lift the bonnet at night with the engine running  and you will have a little light show – rather like a lightning storm.

On a technical point, when you buy something like 2 metres of copper cored plug lead also buy 4x  plug caps plus the rubber seals for the cabling as it goes into the dizzy, the centre and the  feed from the coil. “Green Spark Plug Co” does all this. These  plug caps should be of the type that have a 5k resistor (suppressor if you will) built in.

Now I hear you say,  why do I need to look out for plug caps with resistors fitted.  The answer is that folks with magento ignition systems do NOT have resistors/suppressors  in their ignition systems. If they do,  the  magnetic field generated by the suppressors  around their cabling  kills their magneto. At £600 +/- to rebuild a magneto these details are of some importance.

In 53 years of driving i have only had one coil break down and  the symptoms were that the vehicle ( a LWB in the Serengeti as it happened) would run but not accelerate.

MdeL