Update--modern/buzz coil

L

ldj1002

Senior Member
Today I wired up a modern coil in place of a buzz coil and it worked. Doug said it would be late timing on that cylinder and I am sure it is. However when I ground out the spark plug the engine does have a definite miss and picks right back up when removing the screwdriver grounding it. That means the timing on that cylinder isn't so far off that it isn't doing any good, ie it is doing some good. If all coils were modern coils that sparked when timer brakes current, then all cylinders would be firing with same timing. After all we control the timing with spark advance lever to get it right by ear or power or both. Therefor you would just be placing the lever a little different than if they were buzz coils. I am now convinced it will work and work good and I am satisfied. I am surprised someone hasn't already did this. I am not going to the trouble to do that at least not now. Should I start having buzz coil troubles I will surely consider that as an option.
 
timer closes curcit, completes ground, so buzz coils work. not breaking curcit like points in a dist.
 
One other thing to keep in mind, a distributor on a 4 cylinder has 35-45 degrees of dwell. The Ford Model T timer has 89 degrees of dwell (as measured by an electrical aficiando). That means that your modern coil is "on" twice as long as it should be. Coil life may vary with double the dwell. What this means is that normally it is off about the same time it is on. With this setup it will be on at least 90 percent of the time. I would be interested in how hot it gets running in this condition. Keep us posted on further experiments, it's always fun to follow along.

BTW, the Sure-Fire system which is the modern day equivalent of this experiment with the high voltage coils uses 2 coils from a 4.6L Ford motor with dual outlets. It has I think a hall effect sensor in place of the timer. I have seen it throw close to a 1" spark all day long.
 
But it would be interesting to see if it high speed the AC wave from the magneto would be harsh enough to cause a spark, self advancing in that it would spark when the timer made contact instead of breaking it. (i would once have been able to work it out myself but forgot a mountain of knowlege...)
 
The model T coil fires on one half of the AC sine wave. That's how the polarity reverses and the points last so much longer. If one hooked up a modern coil to an AC magneto it should continuously spark if that were true.
 
A good magneto is going to put out up to 35+ volts ac. A modern coil is made to use 6 or 12 volts dc. When the points open in a distributor it collapses the field from the primary to the secondary in the coil and out the coil wire to the the distributor. This all sound like a grand experiment and I say to go for it.
 
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