Coil Quest Over (or just postponed?)

[garfield at pilgrimhouse.com]

On Tue, 02 Jun 1998 10:05:07 -0700, garfield at pilgrimhouse.com wrote:

>On Tue, 2 Jun 1998 16:22:46 GMT0BST, "Martin Hill" wrote:
>>I do know they are BMW, from a car.  On the top of the coil it has written:

>As a result of my brainfart, I'd just figured the Bosch coils were a
>loss for ION...

Well, it WAS a brainfart maybe, but it just turned out to be right,
accidentally. I checked the most common coils for BMW, and they do
indeed have NO DC continuity between the secondary terminals! Maybe
there IS a gap in series, and it either arcs to the plug or to a gnd
shunt, if the plug connection is open. In any case, I'd say if this is
uniformly a Bosch characteristic, then they like the Nissan coils are
out. Crumbs. They also were nice and small.

BUT, I DID also go over to check out the Mitsubishi coils, and they will
indeed DO just fine!!! They do have fem HV outlets, but I can deal with
that. Good news/bad news, tho. First the good news: they're small, and
the ones for '91-later have TWO such coils mounted on a steel bracket,
but the coils ARE on separate frames/cores, so they could easily be
separated (not so on the '89--mid-90 ones). The best part is the primary
terminals ARE threaded terminals, AND they have a nice little protective
boot that covers the terminals up, but still has a probe hole made so
you can meter the coil without removing the boot. Well thot-out.

Now, the "bad" news: you cannot buy the coils except in these premounted
pairs, and the pair is $180 list! Yow. Although they were used over a
goodly span of years, '91-'94, that's still not alot of cars or a very
good supply source for elevating these guys to "the ION coil-of-choice",
but I'm gettin weary of wandering all over the place groping for coils,
so I think I'll snag a couple of these, either from a yard if I can, or
pop for the whole monty and get a pair new ($owwee$). I know Mits are
popular cars amongst the nouveau riche, but doesn't really make certain
that 10yrs from now, I'll be able to replace them coils in my airplane.
Sigh. Oh Ford or GM, where ARE you when we need you!? Maybe a way for me
to rationalize the expense is to observe that IF they required a
weatherpack special connector on the primary leads, I'd be out another
$20-30 say, and at $180/pair or $90 for a coil that obviates the need
for a connector, maybe it's not THAT bad. Arr arr arrroooo!

Oh well, cain't have everything. Anyway, one way or tother, I guess I
can go about my eXperimental business now. They'll mount nice, and the
only worry really is out in the future some years. The most pressing
issue besides them meeting the electrical reqmts is having easy/robust
mounting/connector features, which these DO, so I'm ready to at least
call the quest off for the duration of the eXperimenting. Once we have
ION solidly running, we can rethink what we wanna do about the coils,
and maybe in the intervening time, some better ones will surface.

As fate and serendipity would have it, this coil was suggested by none
other than Walt the Warp-In ION afficianado, who only a few days ago
just popped in, and was asking "what's an ION?" and "how do you spell
'Patent'". B)  So I guess the race is not to the swift, nor the battle
to the strong, but both to the guy that gets lucky, and just stumbles
upon the treasure. Heh. Whadahoot! Walt, definitely consider buying some
lotto tickets.

Gar

P.S. If y'all wanna touch the jewelry, the Mitsubishi part no. for these
"pair of coils on a bracket" (sounds kinda like corndog-ona-stick, don't
it? B) is:
	MD158956	'91-'94 Mitsubishi Eclipse 2.0L (maybe Gallant as well)
The part no. Walt gave was for the earlier ones that have two coils
wound on one integral core/frame. These are better cuz they can be
separated. I s'pose either would do, tho. That earlier part no. he gave
was:
	MD126461, and if you can stand the siamese twin setup, these ARE a
tad cheaper too. About $130 for the twins.