pertronix ballast resistor or not

[Dave]

I have a later 230sl with the red coil and 1.9 ohm red resistor.   Now that points are gone and pertronix installed which is it?

[rogerh113]

Hi,

When I installed the Pertronix many years ago in my '66, I made no changes except to install the Pertronix.  The car has been running great and I have had no issues at all with the Pertronix.  I think you will be impressed with the improved performance of the car.  It is one of the two primary, highly noticeable performance improvements I made in the car (the other being alloy wheels).

Regards -- Roger

[al_lieffring]

The resistor is for matching the primary voltage to the coil, so to remove the resistor would also require the use a coil with a higher internal resistance.

When I switched to Petronix, I bought their coil to avoid the possibility of incompatibility issues. I got the low resistance coil and retained the factory 1.8 ohm resistor.

I too agree that this is the single best performance improvement I have made to the car in the 37 years that I have owned it.