Ignition: 283 coil

[ozrod]

After banging my head against a wall for 6 months I finally took my 65 Cruiser to some friends shop to see if they could get it running better. Turned out it was the ignition coil. They had a coil from some kind of parts car out back, installed it and the car now runs great. This car originally had the elec. ign. system and it has been disconnected some time ago. My question is what kind of new coil should I buy? I will keep the used coil for backup.

Thanks

[bensherb]

If it were me I'd buy a complete HEI for a small block Chevy drop it in and not have to think about it for the next ten or twenty years. I made one fit my Stude V8 and it works great! (Did the same for my Ford 35 years ago)

But if you want to keep dealing with points you just need a generic 12 volt coil. I believe a '65 has a resistor wire to power the coil so you shouldn't need a coil with an internal resistor. Rock Auto has 11 of them listed for your car ranging from $8.66 to $42.79.

[swvalcon]

Agree 100%, If you buy a MSD unit they use a small cap that is easy to find and no fitment problems.

[Bud]

I've had the best luck with either Standard Blue Streak or NAPA ignition coils. The cheaper coils will work, but their quality is suspect. Spend the money and buy a top quality coil if you want to replace the used coil your shop installed, but it has been my experience that while ignition coils do fail occasionally, it's not very often. I would leave the used coil in service and buy a good spare just in case, but there is a very good possibility, you will never have to use it. Bud

[Jeffry Cassel]

Look for a coil with an Ohmmeter. A coil off an older Corvette can show 11 - 12k Ohms. A cheap one can be as low as 6k Ohms. They vary a lot. Older Delcos seem to be best. Standard used to be good but I've been disappointed with the brand in recent years. Just another instance where good is getting very hard to find. ( Took the new coil off my 57 Clipper and put an old Delco (11k Ohms) on it and it ran much better.) Eventually a guy runs out of old stuff on a shelf.

[Bud]

There is something to be said about using an either NOS coil or using an older used coil. The new stock coils are being produced who knows where and the quality runs from very good to absolute trash. An old stock or used Delco, Autolite/ Prestolite or FoMOCo will work as well as or probably better than the new ones. I personally like the old Ford yellow top coils as they have about the longest spark duration of any coil I have looked at on my engine analyzer. I use the Ford coils on both my 62 Hawk and 63 Avanti engines and I know the one on the Avanti is a NOS part and the one on the Hawk came from a 67 Sunbeam Tiger that the customer wanted a later ignition system installed. Bud

[christophe]

I've had good results with the Bosch red coil on my OHV6 GT. Even if they are produced in Brazil now, the quality is still there.

[Bud]

I've used the Bosch red coils in the past with excellent results, but I haven't seen one in the States in years. Their quality was right up there with the Blue Streak and NAPA coils from years gone by. Bud

[christophe]

Joe Hall bought one for his 56 GH à few years ago, but I don't recall where he bought it.

[Bud]

I used to buy Bosch red coils from my one of my parts houses when I lived in Los Angeles, but that was sometime in the late 80's or early 90's. I also used the Bosch blue coils on ignition systems that required a coil with an internal resistor.

[ozrod]

Thanks all for the feedback. We still have a junkyard here that deals in trucks and suvs and I have seen some older engines that I will try and get some coils off to test then stash in my trunk.

[ozrod]

I did pull a Delco-Remy coil off a core engine in her yard. It worked great on my car. I better go back and run the numbers off that 4bbl intake engine and see what it is.

[Bud]

Most of the 12 volt Delco coils will have a primary winding resistance of around 1.5 ohms if they are good which will work fine for the 1965 ignition system. Bud