mallory coils

hey all... i know this is old school... but bear with me.

how do you know if a mallory coil is bad (super mag III and new style 'sealed' coil)? i have heard that they can't really be tested. hope it's not a stupid question. just kinda scratching my head since i just got my whole set-up back for the SECOND TIME from a very reputable mag guy (mentioned on here a lot) and for the second time in a row it made power for about 4-6seconds.... then dead as a hammer on next pass.

 

Whats yours doing? Exactly?

 

the car will make a pass... and sound really clean, make good power and run fine.

next pass... starts and sounds ok at the start... then following the burn out starts to sound a bit labored and fat and it gets worse from there.

the no spark at all. i can see the points opening and sparking. kill swiches are physically unhooked from the coil to insure their not hanging up. dead... no spark

like i said a top mag guy has seen it (generator and coil) twice in the last two weeks and says it makes good power.

 

Well, I was hoping someone with more Blown Alky experience would shed some light here for you.

After this weekend at Mo-Kan I will be better able to asnwer your questions.

2-weeks ago we ran 6.903 @ 197 MPH. We checked everything over and found the fuel pump to be 1.4 gallons down. I put on our spare and went to Cordova last weekend.

We couldn't run for ****. The car was fat and lazy. It wouldn't lean out enough to run. It would make the burn-out, launch just ok, then get steadily worse down the track. After the shift, it would just lay over and quit pulling. Still running but no power. It didn't pop or bang, just no power.

I checked the fuel system again. It was fine.

I called Mallory, he told me the test numbers for the coil, but, said it could test good and still be bad.

I took our stuff to the local mag guy. He said mag was ok, but the coil was putting out a "BAD" pattern. It tested ok with the meter. He said also, that it dosen't mean it won't be screwed-up under an load and when heated up. It was his opinion that all else being ok in the car, the coil was the problem.

If I were you, if the mag checks good. I would try a new or different coil. JMO

Hope this helps!

 

when we ran the mag 4 if it shook it got a coil! we only put 3or 4 runs on a new coil. and we had quite the maint prog for the mag as well.points etc. also we used Don zig coils with limited success.

 

get in some good light and look at the boss where the coil wire goes on and see if you can see a slight trace of carbon traking same problems one time if its there coil is junk Sorry