<VV> Dormant engine (spark)

[MarK Durham]

My 62 gave me fits a few years ago. Thought it was the coil, in fact had
several high performance coils go bad in the middle of this which really
confused me, but eventually I took the resistance wire out of the circuit
entirely (I got tired of seeing this wisp of smoke out of the wiring
harness), even after replacing that aft section in the engine compartment,
so I finally wired a 12 volt lead back to the coil location, added a 64
style resistor from the local FLAPS , and went with a std coil. The car
runs great, the pertronix works great, I haven't been stranded since.
 Mark Durham
Hauser, Idaho
62 Monza coupe Red/Red 4 speed


On Mon, Aug 18, 2014 at 10:06 PM, kevin nash via VirtualVairs <
virtualvairs at corvair.org> wrote:

>
>
>
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 12:35:36 -0400
> > From: "Smitty" <vairologist at cox.net>
> > To: <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
> > Subject: <VV> Dormant engine (spark)
> > Message-ID: <5FE77675D4804BA59E27D278CC2085FF at smittyPC>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
> >       reply-type=original
>  >
> >
> > Smitty- Not to make too big of a deal out of this, but it takes
> thousands of
> > VOLTS, not amps to properly
> > and reliably light the highly compressed mixture in an engine, and a
> spindly
> > blue spark will run a
> > engine and a fat yellow one wont!! It takes literally MILLIONS of volts
> and
> > only a couple of amps
> > at most to make a spark jump a few feet in air and make some noise, and
> it
> > will be blue, and not orange
> > or yellow. A properly functioning coil will make a BLUE spark, a bad
> one, if
> > it sparks at all, will be YELLOW.
> > Sorry for trying to help.
> > Kevin Nash
> > ---------------------------------------------
> > Smitty says;    Kevin any attempt to help is welcome.  It just might be
> the
> > magic number that makes the difference with my problem  I am not so sure
> of
> > myself that I would a point on a lot of things without checking the facts
> > again.  I read your post and got up and went to the garage.  I fired up
> > Spike the racer with an Accel coil on it.  Pulled the # 1 plug wire and
> got
> > knocked on my butt for my effort.   Regrouped and stayed away from the
> 3/4
> > inch spark it was making to get to any ground, anyplace.  Observed the
> spark
> > and conceded that there was a lot of blue in it.  But plenty of yellow
> too.
> > Maybe it is just the color definition of my eyes.  If you want I will
> post
> > privately o you a few of the idiotic things that were  sent to me in an
> > effort to help.  I did not respond to any of them in a negative manner.
> My
> > response to you was not an effort to slam you but to tell you I was
> > disagreeing with you.
> > As for my understanding of volts/ amps etc I will stand on my statement.
> > There is virtually no heat or usable energy in extremely high voltage
> when
> > amperage is not present.  It takes very little amperage to change that
> into
> > something that will kill you.  That is what I was feeling when I pulled
> the
> > plug wire off.     As a for instance, the static generator toys,  where
> you
> > can put your hands near and make your hair stand on end is pure
> voltage.  A
> > pretty blue color.  Millions of volts.  Better not add any amperage to it
> > though.  Amperage kicks voltage in the pants to keep it going.
> >   Smitty- Absolutely!- we don't really disagree, both volts and a
> (small) amount of amps are important- I was talking about the importance of
> voltage only because it did sound to me like, based on your description of
> what the spark looked like, that there was a problem with voltage, and it
> may be that its just a difference in how you see the spark color! The
> important thing is that the spark on the non running/poorly running engine
> have the same or nearly so color to you as Spike does- if so, then there' s
> probably nothing wrong with the coil, but doesn't necessarily rule out a
> bad resistor wire.  One of my earliest memories of engine problems was 40
> some odd years ago (I was probably 10 or 11 then) and was watching this guy
> working on his motorcycle, and he said something to me about it having
> spark, but it was yellow, and that was the only clue he needed to conclude
> that he had an ignition problem-whatever it was he did to fix it also
> corrected the spark color- ever since
>   then I was always careful to remember that the color of the spark was
> just as important as whether or not there was any!Kevin Nash
>
>
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