Wiki page about ballast resistors says:
quote:
The term also refers to an automobile engine component that lowers the supply voltage to the ignition system after the engine has been started. Because cranking the engine causes a very heavy load on the battery, the system voltage can drop quite low during cranking. To allow the engine to start, the ignition system must be designed to operate on this lower voltage. But once cranking is completed, the normal operating voltage is regained; this voltage would overload the ignition system. To avoid this problem, a ballast resistor is inserted in series with the supply voltage feeding the ignition system. Occasionally, this ballast resistor will fail and the classic symptom of this failure is that the engine runs while being cranked (while the resistor is bypassed) but stalls immediately when cranking ceases (and the resistor is re-connected in the circuit).
So my guess is that the thing once failed, and one simply disconnected it...
As far as I can judge, the car is still running its original ignition.It is after all me going through the ignition's wiring (because of an engine sometimes aburptly running badly) that made me spot that white thingy, bolted to the fire-wall.
This is a scenario for a future ignition coil failure, or..?
It doens't look like it got disconnected recently, though I have no idea since how long the car runs like this.