Put in a Lucas Sport today

My de-smogged 1980 LE has been sputtering recently so I started looking at the coil. My neighbor gave me his out-of-the-box Lucas Sport DLB 105 that he bought back in 1995. After installing it, it started, but would only idle -- as soon as I stepped on the gas, the tach would drop to 0 rpm and almost die. It recovers if I take my foot off the gas. Do I need to adjunct the timing when I put in this new coil?

Nope.. your timing should not be effected....
Check fuel delivery..

This is a Jeff Schlemmer question, but if I remember the sport coil was not a plug-n-play option on my 1980 with the CEI ignition. Something to do with ballast, or no ballast......

Found this:

http://www.britishmiles.com/parts/dlb105.html

Looks like the sport coil won't work with a ballasted system.

I think the CEI is has a ballast wire.

The Sport coil has 3 Ohms of resistance, more or less. The factory coil is much hotter, at 1.4 - 1.5 Ohms. You just cut out a lot of the power provided to the distributor. Put the old one back in!

Jeff, I tried calling you today, but should have left a message. I put the old one back in and it runs fine again. Would the Bosch Blue be a better fit?

Nope. The Bosch Black may work though. I think I have a couple of them here.

One thing you can try though - bypass the ballast resistor and install the Sport coil. You can run a jumper directly to the "white" circuit at the fuse panel, and tuck away the 2 green/white wires that attach to the + terminal. Everything else hooks up the same. That will set up the wiring just like the chrome bumper cars, which should make a 3 Ohm coil work fine. It also eliminates about a dozen wiring connections that could potentially fail in the future.

It sounds like a good alternative, but I'm wondering if there is cleaner solution that will replace the existing coil with little hassle. Would the Black do this?

Why do I keep thinking of Johnny Walker with all these colors? :-)

Right wrong or indifferent, here is what I used after journeying along the same path:

http://bhive.tierranet.com/301MGB45DM4ignition.html

Works great. Glad Jeff is here with his expertise. Follow his advice and you can't miss. I am convinced the ignition on these little cars, the coils in particular, present the most confusing choices in the automotive world.

The stock coil really put out great volatge, so its a great option. An upgrade would be the Bosch Black coil. The DLB 198 or DLB231 (Taiwan replacement) is the facory coil to be used.

I am confused. I have a 1978 with a CEI ignition. I am using a Bosch blue coil with the (+) connected directly to the fusebox. Car runs okay, but would I be better off with one of those stock coils from the b-hive? SHould it be connected with the ballast wire or straight to the fuse box like it is now? I am always interested in improvments.

Thanks,

Paul

This is the one I have in my 80B with original ignition and it has never given me any problems. Seems as if Jeff gave his blessing on this one if I remember correctly. It's a shelf item at most auto parts stores :)

On a tip from Naomi, I too used the Accel coil, her husband electrical engineer researched. I am happy with it. 78 B with CEI ignition.

Jeff, please correct me if I am wrong on any or all of this, but my understanding is that:

The earlier cars used an internally resisted coil, somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 ohms and that the later cars needed a coil that had essentially no resistance, say 1.5 ohms or so.

Further, just about any "modern coil" of the correct primary resistance should fire a decent set of plugs through a decent set of wires in a B motor with stock compression.

For myself, I have found that the Bosch blue coil does a fine job in the earlier cars and is priced right. The externally resisted coils from Bosh and NAPA are all suitable for the later externally resisted cars.

Your turn Jeff.

Jack

The later cars with the 1.5 Ohm coil ALSO have an external ballast, equating to 3 Ohms total. Ditch the extra wire connections and install a 3 Ohm coil and you're done. Also, remmerb that those coils were made for the OPUS distributors. 99.9% of those are dead, so the need for thier coils has almost vanished. In fact, those coils used on the CEI ignision are just carry-overs from the OPUS units. Later in 1980 I believe they changed to a more appropriate coil.

The 3 Ohm coil is very much appropriate IF you change the wiring as described above. If you want to keep the wiring stock, stick with a 1.5 Ohm coil.

Naomi, I DO NOT like the Accel coils. Remember how the first one you bought didn't work? Then you had to exchange it for another? I'm not a fan of coils that are hit-or-miss. Its too easy to make a good coil, so stick with the more reputable and consistent manufacturers. Accel is one of those companies who have changede hands several times, only kept around for their past reputation. I don't know if they even sell any "unique" products anymore. Most of their stuff is from Mr. Gasket (owned by the same parent company) in a different package.

I do remember that the 80 model ignition is unique to only that year and Jeff, like always, is right. The coil needs to be 12 volts - with 12 volts applied -- 3 ohms -- no ballast resistor . Now how did I know -- hubby just told me what to type here and Jeff was the one who helped us fix mine after I had a coil burn out. The late model MGB ( 74 1/2 - 79 ) coils just ain't the right one. Even today information about the 80 MGB system is pretty much nonexistent here on the web and also in the repair manuals.

The 80 MGB is a different breed :) :)

Kevin, do a search on how many times Late model cars have failed wiring in the ignition circuit. It comes up weekly. My approach worked on 14 years of MG factory production and you don't see those guys posting here complaining that their cars won't start.

By the way, the Opus distributors did run on reduced voltage, but they're all dead. The CEI runs great on 12V. Just look at every Chevy V8 built from '75-86. They all use the same design system.