Starting spark frequency? (ignition issues...)

Dana67Dart said
This is troubling to me.

If you have a standard coil and a standard mopar electronic ignition system you still need a ballast resister.

IIRC the older 5 wire ECUs need a ballast resister for their power feed and the coil needs it's ballast resister

The newer and I suspect all replacement ECUs are 4 wire and the ECU does not need a ballast resister on its feed. BUT you still need the ballast for the coil.

So if you bypassed both the top AND the bottom ballast resisters you might be cooking the coil.

Now if you have aftermarket coil, dist, and ECU they may have internal protections and be specifically designed to run on full battery voltage.

The story behind this is the guy who restored the car couldn't get it to start with the ballast so he bypassed it. This was one of the things I was eventually going to try to figure out why (it doesn't make sense to me why, but it would not run with a ballast) so now is as good a time as any. I currently have the coil from RT Garage that is matched to the REVNNATOR, but they say you should use a ballast, too.