Well i have had my 2nd direct fire ignition for a little while now and nothing has gone wrong knock on wood, and last night i helped bad83 (sam) make one for his car. and we started discussing the issue some guys were getting with the 2nd gen coil heating up and going bad. when we were at radio shack we saw a little fan. its a 3inch 2500rpm brushless electric fan for like 15 bucks. its about the size of the 2nd gen coil and runs off of 12v and is supposed to last like 20,000 hours. now if it were mounted above or below the coil to transfer cool air around and desipate teh heat the coil would have less chance of going bad. just an idea. i bought one and im going to try and mount it on mine later today. it cant hurt any. and if i can get it mounted up i think sam is going to use one on his too.

 

It could probably help some. There is a lot of heat generated in the ignitor, though. I think a good idea for the simple TT circuits would be to add an additional ballast resistor on the 2nd gen power wire. This will reduce the current and the heat generated in the ignitior.

 

yeah i have driven on long drives (hour and a half) but never felt an extreme heat. the metal part of my coil on my simplified version has never gotten that hot. im temped to drive it for an hour or so and then take a thermometer and check the actual temperature of the metal part. i cant see the heat i have felt causing mine to fail. i dont know how hot electircal compontents have to be to damage them selves but seemslike it would have to be pretty hot for a period of time. and with air flowing through it, it would cool it down right.

 

Well, thanks alot fot the help Robert. I think what gsl-le addict is getting at makes sense to a piont. I still have all the "luxury" items on my '83. I am wanting to make sure when it's 95 degrees out and running the AC, sitting in traffic, my car doesn't die on me. I like to be over protective of my baby. As she gets older like me, she needs all the tlc I can give her. Just my 2cents.