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Melted Mallory Ignition Coil (MAL-29440)

G Guest
Exactly during our big Pantera meeting in Switzerland on August 7th, my Mallory Coil was melted Frowner !
Fortunately our Swiss "Yellow Road Angel" had a standard 12V Bosch coil in the car so he was able to fix it temporarily.

So I ordered instantly the new Mallory coil MAL-29450 with a built in ballast resistor, so I can hook up also the 12V directly.

Hmm, but now, I'm not so sure anymore if that was the right decision ...

History:
The system was installed, when I bought the car in 2002 because between signing the contract and pick up the car, the previous ignition system went out of order...
I agreed with the seller to install a brand new Mallory Unilite System consisting of a MAL-3756701 distributor and the MAL-29440 coil.
But, if I’m now recalling, from the beginning I was not really satisfied with the quality of the product and the set up of the whole system in general:
- 1 year after installing the system, the drive weel pin of the distributor was broken because of poor material of the pin (I have no high volume pump). Now with a rolled pin it’s ok since then.
- From the beginning the engine shut of in idle, when my cooling fans started – A car electrician found out, that the current at the coil input was to low, so he fiddled around with different ballast resistors in order to have a more or less consistent current at the coil. Well, at least the idle problem was solved.

So my questions:
- Is it advisable to stick with this modified Malloy Combo or is it better, in the long run, to change the whole system to another brand?
- Does anybody here have any experience (good or bad) with Mallory components?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
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George PGeorge PAdmin.
Rene, the Mallory Unilite distributor has a reputation for being unreliable. There are many enthusiasts who swear by the Unilite distributor, but there are also websites offering advice on how to repair them! Distributors that employ a Hall effect pick-up or inductive pick-up such as the MSD or Ford Duraspark have far fewer problems.

The ignition switch in the steering column has problems handling the additional current of an electronic ignition. the contacts will burn creating a point of resistance and voltage drop, the result being you no longer have 13.6 volts delivered to the ignition system. I have seen the voltage drop become so bad that when an owner operated his headlights or power windows his engine would stall due to insufficient voltage to operate the ignition.

It is best to install a relay to handle the current load of the electronic ignition.

cowboy from hell
P PartTimeAdult (Guest)
quote:
Originally posted by 83pantera:
A car electrician found out, that the current at the coil input was to low, so he fiddled around with different ballast resistors in order to have a more or less consistent current at the coil.


I think you found 1/2 your coil-melting problem
P 83pantera (Guest)
quote:
Originally posted by Cowboy from Hell:
It is best to install a relay to handle the current load of the electronic ignition.

Thanks for the advise. Well, the solution with the relay seams like the only way to go...
I'm just surprised, that now, with this simple 40 buck Bosch coil, the engine is reving much better then with the previous, so called "high performance", Mallory coil, which costs in Switzerland about 5x more.. Confused
panteradougpanteradougMember
If you have to do the ignition over again use a Motorcraft distrubutor and brain. Power it with a 50 amp continous duty relay and the only thing you will have to mess with is the tachometer.

Some cars have problems with it some don't, that tach that is.

The Motorcraft (the Chevy guys call it Motorcrap, they should talk) is the most dependable unit and easiest to service for a non -race car.

There are a buch of people here who are becoming believers. Slowly but none the less seeing the light.
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