Mechanics today would’ve probably looked at say a stock 65 dodge dart and thought easy til trying to figure out the points. Ive forgotten its been so long and havent adjusted the dwell angle?in almost forty years

It’s awesome to see the ripples of knowledge. @scannerdanner influencing @pinehallowdiagnostics. And how many more the both of you have influenced and taught to diagnose the problem. I am currently working on classic Porsche and this knowledge is exactly how the CDI boxes work. Thanks for the awesome lessons!

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That's awesome, thank you! Check out my classroom videos on my website where I'm teaching page for page from the book. I offer a 14 day free trial and it is only $11 a month after, giving you access to over 450 videos and counting. This video is an example of one that I have there www.scannerdanner.com/join-scannerdanner-premium.html

Wow paul great teaching thank you.

yes ,need to understand circuit design of your car,then you can test each part,find out what is missing ,then fix it,that was pauls main mission,get us to understand the design of the problem ,then can solve it ,he is a genius teacher ,he up my game ,with his style of problem solving ,i fix cars now ,his way,test light ,scope ,circuit diagram,circuit design,with them skills you can fix any think from a chainsaw to a battle ship,love paul to have a crashed ufo in his shop,and make a circuit design for it ,how to fix them,fly again ,bet he could do it too

Yes saw in old gm &Ford

The ballast resistor is not for cold starting. The purpose of the ballast resistor is not to limit current flow across the points either when you could do that simply by having more primary winding's and greater primary resistance. A 3 ohm coil would give 4 amps at the points which is nominal. It's primary function is tuning of the coil oscillations. The coil system is an RLC circuit. It has a resistance (ballast resistor) on the positive voltage side, followed by an inductance (coil winding's) which is followed by a capacitance (the condensor) on the negative side when the points are open (that makes an RLC circuit) The capacitance, inductance and resistance determine the tuned frequency of the coil oscillations from mutual inductance of both primary and secondary winding's, which includes the plug leads. The resistance of the coil primary determines current flow, the ballast resistor is the circuit tuning part. Two problems with internal ballast resistors. One is if the ignition is left turned on for a long time with engine off the internal ballast resistor could heat up enough to blow oil out of the coil and kill it, the other issue was that during cranking when voltage dropped so low it compromised spark. With an external resistor it can heat up and wont burn up the insides of the coil, and it can also be bypassed during cranking by the starter sending the coil direct voltage not through the external ballast resistor. They could have had a third terminal on coils to allow the internal resistor to be bypassed during cranking but that would not solve the internal resistor overheating issue, the external ballast fixes both issues. If you turn on your ignition but don't start the engine after a while you will note the ballast resistor gets hot enough to burn flesh but when you start the engine it gets cooler, You can imagine what happens if that is inside the oil filled coil. So if you have an old car with internal ballast coil, do not leave the ignition turn on without the engine running for prolonged periods or you could fry the internals of the coil to the point it blows oil out if the points happen to be closed when the engine is not running and the coil is powered up. Some claim that it heats up and increases resistance to limit current and then cools down to increase voltage when running for more spark at higher RPM. It only heats up because it is drawing more current at low RPM or KOEO, converting that energy to heat that then increases the resistance over it as it heats up. And when the current drops once it is running obviously it cools down. That is not by design that is simply what resistors do as current increases over them.

With your permission, I like to chime in. If memory serves (which is not too reliable these days), the reason for the resistor was to reduce voltage across the points in the distributer to reduce arcing, and to help with condenser. The ignition coil was rated 12V; but during running of the engine, it was supplied with less voltage due to the resistor. This reduced voltage would help reduce arcing across the points in the distributer and extend the life of the points. At times, the arcing would cause pitted points. In time they would not separate and drop the primary voltage in the coil. This would keep the spark plugs from firing. During the cranking, there was a “by-pass” wire from the starter solenoid to the coil primary post. This “by-pass” wire would provide 12V to the coil directly, so upon interruption by the points and collapsing of the primary side, it produced a higher voltage for the plugs. Since the cranking periods were shorter than engine running periods, it was an acceptable risk. After introduction of electronic ignitions, many of the issues of non-starting due to bad points were eliminated. Ignition systems have come a long way baby.

Which would change the timing, in relation to piston position of when the points would open/close Maybe I misspoke?

Not true sorry. HEI had no effect to the size of the distributor caps.

Not accurate. That is a myth. The reason the cap is so large is to accommodate the coil into one assembly. Look at race ignitions with greater voltage, the caps are smaller.

The saw tooth you refer to is simply a characteristic of the pick up coil. If we are talking about a sensor that makes its own voltage, it is referred to as an AC sign wave. No reason to complicate it, wouldn't you agree?

interesting, so which one applies to our field? lol

Unless there was a coil driver issue, keeping the coils energized with the key on (which is not normal), then I do not believe this to be your issue. Scan it for codes as a starting point. Could be anti antitheft related. Try disconnecting the battery and then touching the disconnected cables together (called a capacitor discharge)

No, the condenser protected the points, the ballast resistor protected the coil from too much current at low engine RPMs as the on-time (dwell) was much much longer

@@ScannerDanner Ok.But for argument sake how does HEI which uses 12 volts instead of 4 or 5 and just flips the dwell rate from descending to ascending as rpm increases not go thru coils ?

@@vikinghauler3244 it has a built in current limiting feature to the transistor that controls the coil. Once it is saturated, current flow is limited, hence the current ramp and then flat top characteristic on a primary current waveform on a scope

It is becoming more and more difficult to answer questions here. I have 80,000 people asking me for help now. So I have created a forum to help you guys better. It is free to join and we can exchange pictures, wiring diagrams and waveforms if needed to help guide you through the process of troubleshooting your vehicle. Thank you so much! Hope to see you there. Paul Danner (ScannerDanner) www.scannerdanner.com/forum/post-your-repair-questions-here.html

I'm sorry, I am not following your question

Ok I replace all for make spark right , so my question is if I have pulse in the inyector but not from the wire coil following you class about ignition I’m just noticed the only one issue have to be my computer the ecm bcs I try everything replace everything and still just cranking but not give me spark I need some clue before but a new pcm(2001 Dodge Ram van 1500 8 cil 5.2 any video can help me if you have one please I hope you follow this thank you

@@icealexsanzage maybe this one will help you kzfaq.info/get/bejne/i9FdetR51bWvcY0.html

frank hager there is an open in the wire between the distributer and the coil. the test on the coil would still light up.

Mitchell on Demand is a professional program that costs around $170 a month. There are options for you guys where you can buy access to a single car for a month for $20 eautorepair.adtrk.biz/?a=10817&c=24&p=r&s1= With this you'll get service information and wiring diagrams

You'll need some wiring diagrams for sure. Here is a place you can find some service information. scannerdanner.com/forum/post-your-repair-questions-here/16-need-service-info-check-here.html

Front O2 = B1S1 Second O2 = B1S2 Third O2 = B1S3 This is probably a California emission vehicle. The B2 and B3 sensors are used to monitor the cat.

sorry, I meant S2 and S3