Hi Fastlaners,

I recently installed a VC Bosch Hei (refurbished and re-graphed by performance ignitions in Ringwood) and NOS Bosch Hei Coil into my HT, with stock 186 motor.

Huge improvement to starting and driveability.

I had an autoelec join the red and yellow wires from the ignition to supply constant 12volt to the coil using the original wiring. The reason we went this way is that whatever he tried in terms of using a relay, the car would run on when the ignition was turned off - tried all of the obvious things, diodes, etc - the only thing which worked was having a globe under the dash which supplied a load to the back of the relay when the ignition was turned off - not exactly a practical. Anyhow the fused red and yellow wire from the ignition switch seems to work, BUT, now when I start the car the ammeter reads really high - up around 35-40 amps in the positive), and then gradually drops over time, but I haven't driven it long enough since the HEi install to see if the gauge actually gets back down to zero or thereabouts. I am not sure if this is something to be concerned about or not, and I don't want to fry either my wiring or the ammeter gauge.

I am no expert on wiring/electrics and am unsure if this is an issue or nothing to worry about or if there is another wiring mod that I need to undertake.

The car has full 'sports' instrumentation and the proper wiring harness (not a modified standard dash harness.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

htprem

Hi Dr Terry,

Pardon my poor description - I did mean the pink wire, no the red wire.

By describing the 12 volts to the coil as constant, I did mean only when the ignition was on.

As I think through this I am starting to to think that the vehicle was probably started and stopped quite a few times while the autoelec tried to trouble shoot what was going on with the initial approach of wiring in a relay - I suppose it is possible for the charge system to be putting out a lot of grunt to recharge the battery after repeated starts.

Thanks

htprem