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Hi,

My Pantera's ignition consists of a 'Duraspark' D5AE 12A199 A3D with a green strain relief, the gigantic Accel Super Coil 140001, and an external ballast resistance of 1.6 ohms, all powered via a 12v relay....

Pantera - ignition, starter

I have recently fitted the 12si alternator kit from Pantera Electronics and now have a battery voltage of ~14v. Now, the 'Duraspark' module has ~14v at the red wire connection, and when idling the coil +ve has ~9v. The voltages before were ~13v and ~8v.

My questions are;

1. Will that voltage be OK for the coil?

2. Is there a better, more compact coil? You can see how cramped everything is.

3. Is a spark plug gap of 0.050" ok?

I realise that this may not be a Duraspark (II) module due to its 1975 year of manufacture, I'd just like to not ruin the system and optimise it further if I can.

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

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  • Pantera - ignition, starter
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My experience with the “blue strain relief” system is:

1) The ford e-coil (TFI Coil) on eBay runs just fine.  It’s a lot smaller than yours, and you can buy a (used) stock bracket that lets you mount it to the electronics mount bar on the bulkhead.

2) DON’T use a ballast resistor with the Ford TFI e-coil.  The problem will show itself at high RPM where your engine will misfire.  It will run fine until >4000 RPM.  I don’t know about whether your Accel coil will operate properly with the Duraspark system.

3) I switch main power to the Duraspark system via a relay, and I tap primary ignition power off the main connection at the solenoid input.  The Duraspark takes about 10-12 amps (guessing), but my setup takes that load off the ignition switch.  You can mount the relay to the electronics mount bar on the bulkhead as well.

4) DANGER:  If you forget and leave the key on for more than a couple minutes without the engine running, you will fry the Duraspark box, or the coil, or both….

(Suggestion:  Before you go too far with your configuration…. Check that the Duraspark connector wiring is is the same as the Blue strain relief boxes.  They are a lot more common.  I don’t know about the green units, but I do know the Blue and Red boxes have a different wiring configuration).

Good luck - mine has been a reliable system, now that I’ve learned to keep the key off when the engine is not running!

Rocky

PS….  You can bench test the system like that….  Just hook it up to your distributor, and give it a whirl. In the test configuration , both the Duraspark and distributor both need a good “chassis” connection to the negative connection to the battery.

Last edited by rocky

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