I have the choice right now to pick either a ballast setup or not, I know the pinto usually had a ballast one but is it worth the hassle? or the extra £4.60 for the resistor I'd need

How often are you going to be trying to start your car in very cold conditions, when your battery isn't giving its best and your oil is like treacle?

If this isn't going to happen, use an ordinary coil!

hmm tbh that engine always fires right away so I suppose I doesn't need any help

Use the ballast resistor if it should have one, or buy a coil with one built in. All sorts of horrible things can happen if you don't, wires can burn out, coils can fail etc. Play safe and buy the proper bits.

That's not what Mr W is asking - I think...

It's a case of buying a 9 volt coil that needs a ballast resistor plus buying a resistor, or buying a 12v coil that doesn't need a ballast resistor at all.

The only downside of the second option is that when your battery is tired or cold then there may not be enough volts available to feed the coil properly while the starter is cranking - there may only be 9 volts or so at that time. When a ballast system is fitted properly, the resistor is bypassed at startup time and the low volts is more than enough to give a spark.

Before I fitted Megajolt I used a 12v coil on my x-flow engine (which used to use a 9v one). I did occasionally have problems starting the engine, but that was mostly due to a battery that was not 100% charged, and 20W-50 oil that is like treacle when icy cold. Eventually I put the battery on a maintenance charger when not driving, and all those problems went away.

[Edited on 30/9/09 by David Jenkins]

Dont bother, buy a 12v coil and be done with it.

Never had a problem starting my pinto even with masses of idle advance and in the freezing cold in the winter on a tiny fiesta battery.

David