[MacDaddy]

Hi All,

Does an 89 Vitara have Negative Switching on some things ?

I bought some Haigh Spotties, had them on the Roo Bar for a few weeks and thought it was time to wire them up !
Put a 30 amp fused lead from battery to a 30 amp relay, ran the wires to the spotties, and ran a negative/ground to the body for relay switching, then ran another wire to the headlight, so i could have the spotties come on when high beam is selected, after a few hours of swearing and muttering to myself, and alot of odd bits of single core 15amp wire at my feet, i could not get them to work...

It then dawned on me, after i put a volt meter on the spade clips at the headlight, that one of the wires had 12V's at it already,
As soon as i wired them for negative/ground switching, they worked

GT40 Coil
I was in REPCO and asked about a price for a GT40 Coil for my 89 Vitara, first off the standard coil was over $200, and the GT40 coil was only $60, they wanted to know if i had a resister or not, i had no idea, so i am here asking if it does or doesnt have a resistor ?
Also, what are your thoughts/info about GT40 coils, are they any good, do they improve spark, do they make the engine run better ?
And, does anyone know what model/part number GT40 coil will go onto my 89 Vitara ?

Cheers

[SuziBlu]

NO, you do not have a resistor, Royce steered me in the right direction.

You will see wonderful improvements with a GT40, but, go one better and get a GT40T.

To make the most of this, if you are mechanically minded, open your plugs to 1.2mm and advance your ignition timing.

I am going to go from 13.5° BTDC to er, not sure, maybe 15°, but a bit of play works incredible wonders.

use 98 octane only.

[MacDaddy]

SuziBlu wrote:

NO, you do not have a resistor, Royce steered me in the right direction.

You will see wonderful improvements with a GT40, but, go one better and get a GT40T.

To make the most of this, if you are mechanically minded, open your plugs to 1.2mm and advance your ignition timing.

I am going to go from 13.5° BTDC to er, not sure, maybe 15°, but a bit of play works incredible wonders.

use 98 octane only.

Hi SuziBlu,

Ok thanks for that, i just hope it doesnt have a resistor, dont want to stuff up a new GT coil .

What is a GT40T Coil ?
Does it cost much more ?
I can do the plugs, not sure about the timing, i dont have a timing light, will have to get that done when i get my Zook retuned with the sports exhaust system...
I have just started using Premium Unleaded, 95 Octane, and i can feel the difference... the exhaust fumes are not so smelly either...

[SuziBlu]

The GT40 is a much more powerful coil than stock, and looks identical to the nipposnenso coil that is stock, the GT40T is a transformer coil, little squarish type thing and is the highest voltage that they make.

Yea must ring the auto electrican and have a go at him, leading me astray like that, I have used him a lot and trust him, well hehe, used too.

[royce]

You cant expect Mechanics and Auto Sparkies to know everything about every car there is, especially ones that arent mainstream, afterall its not like they are doctors and only have one model with two basic configurations to work on

[SuziBlu]

Yea true. But as I know him, i'll give him a bit of shit anyway.

[steak_knife]

royce wrote:

You cant expect Mechanics and Auto Sparkies to know everything about every car there is, especially ones that arent mainstream, afterall its not like they are doctors and only have one model with two basic configurations to work on

royce, can you go & tell my boss that??

[royce]

Better still, tell it to a doctor when you are either giving them a bill or copping one from them

[steak_knife]

) oh yer!!! We do the job of a doctor, or at least we wash our hand's as often anyway!

[MacDaddy]

Hi All,

I went to get a price on a GT40T coil from AutoOne today, first off they said are you sure you dont mean a GT40RT Coil, he didnt know what the difference was, but said he sold mostly GT40RT Coils, i said i am pretty sure the R means resistor...

Then he asked what car it was for, so he looked in his Bosch book, and couldnt find GT40T Coil for my Zook, and he basically said, if its not in the Bosch book, then it may be because it wont work and its a bad idea to put one on... But the price he gave me was $90...

Well now i am a bit confused... do i need a GT40RT or GT40T coil ?
And is putting a GT40T coil on my Zook a bad idea, and will it cause damage ?

Have included a pic of my coil, is that a resistor above it ?
Or is it what they call a Condenser/Noise Suppressor ?

My Zook is a 89 SWB JLX Vitara with G16A engine...

[SuziBlu]

R coils, being resistor are only for the old points ignition, if you have electronic, you do not use a resisted coil.

Go for the GT40T, I took my R coil off and put on the GT40T, excellent.

Open your plugs to say 1.2mm as well, its a much hotter fatter spark, and so a bigger gap makes it better again.

[Rockhopper]

I would stay away from transformer coils. They tend to overheat and shit themselves prematurely. Go an oil filled coil for years of trouble free motoring. And I hate to tell you guys, but the differance between a Bosch gt40 coil and any other manufacturers coil is..... the colour. Bosch colourered them red as a marketing strategy. People see they're red and labelled 'gt40' and automatically assume they perform better than other coils. How do I know this? It was explained to me during a Bosch course I did when I used to work at a major roadside assistance company.Don't get me wrong, they are a good coil, and you may feel a little differance when replacing an old clapped out coil, but next to a brand new Suzuki coil or generic similar, you'll be hard pressed to notice any differance.

[SuziBlu]

Rockhopper wrote:

I would stay away from transformer coils. They tend to overheat and shit themselves prematurely. Go an oil filled coil for years of trouble free motoring. And I hate to tell you guys, but the differance between a Bosch gt40 coil and any other manufacturers coil is..... the colour. Bosch colourered them red as a marketing strategy. People see they're red and labelled 'gt40' and automatically assume they perform better than other coils. How do I know this? It was explained to me during a Bosch course I did when I used to work at a major roadside assistance company.Don't get me wrong, they are a good coil, and you may feel a little differance when replacing an old clapped out coil, but next to a brand new Suzuki coil or generic similar, you'll be hard pressed to notice any differance.

Look at the electrical pressures in a after market coil like a gt40 and then do a comparison to a standard.

GT40T 50,000 volts, most standard run in the 20,000 volt range.

I can see what you mean when you say they are exactly the same.

[royce]

if you wanna see the difference measure the primary and secondary resistance I bet they are the same

I am still against GT40 being used as they arent designed for electronic ignition, MEC716 or 7 (whichever is the right lead type) is a better choice

did you sort your lights out? there is a tech article on the home page with a wiring diagram that will help you

[SuziBlu]

Royce, when I get me act together I will do just that, still have the OEM coil so I can do the comparison.

Not sure here, you have either points, or electronic ignition, and as my dizzy has no points, I assume, electronic ignition, breaker-less maybe, but still electronic, and as the GT40 is for electronic ignition, isn't that the coil that suits.

[SuziBlu]

Royce,

OEM 1.9 ohms, 11.89k ohms Primary and secondary ohms

GT40T 3.5 and 8.5k ohms, primary and secondary.

Big difference.

My suzi has electronic ignition, as I assumed did all suzis, so the GT40 is fine to use, in my way of reasoning.

[royce]

you can have points, or in electronic there is magnetic (suzuki have this) or hall effect (or optical)

they both do the triggering for the module but in different ways hence why bosch make an MEC (magnetic) and HEC (hall effect) coils, 716 and 717 after them refers to teh type of HT lead they take

GT40 is for points, GT40R is for points and resistor

T on the end just means transformer type, rather than oil filled

[royce]

GT 40 will be a lot lower output that the factory coil, less current on the primary, less voltage increase on the secondary

some reference

http://mgaguru.com/mgtech/ignition/ig108.htm

[SuziBlu]

Royce, I will have to dig deeper for this to make sense, lucky my brother is an electronics wizz.

As I see it, if you have 50,000 volts, with 8,000 ohms resistance, there is far away greater spark than 20,000 volts with nearly 12,000 ohms resistance.

[royce]

the secondary resistance is a function of the numbers of turns, so more coils = bigger spark created by the magnetic field collasping (with is also greater do to hihger current in the primary)

resistance isnt the best way to compare these things, but its all us mere mortals have

[SuziBlu]

My concept of electronics is, how the hell, when you use a temperature gauge on a wire, and it says, say, 20°c, can it friggin burn ya.

I do not understand a lot of electronics, I have a reasonable grasp but still get tricked easily.

Why if the GT40 is the wrong coil, does it feel noticibly more powerful than with the OEM coil.

And, a spark is a spark, so unless its a resisted coil, it should not matter be it points, (which after you explaining points and electronic issues, and the lower voltage for points) or electronic ignition.

Crikey, so many questions about stupid electricity.

I just know that my zook goes hard, harder than when I had the OEM coil.

[SuziBlu]

Best power upgrade I ever did, had a very horrific day a while back, had to go check on a neighbor, she had passed on, and then tell her elderly husband, dam that was hard.

Anyway, could not get my head right, kept seeing this lady on the floor, so I decided to do some suzi love.

Ripped out the positive and negative leads to the block and starter, and replaced them with 400 amp welding earth lead, the copper wire was bigger than the whole of the old lead, sheath and all.

Far far less current drop with the bigger heavier leads.



The wire is also a hell of a lot finer, so it carries more juice.

The engine turns over far faster and she really kicks into broom mode.

[royce]

stick an earth from teh firewall to the battery as well

heres one for you, why, when you get 2 transformer coils and wire the primarys in parralell and ziptie them together, but epoxy up the HT lead on teh secondary of one and hook the lead to the other do you get a lot more spark

a coil is a transformer, its takes AC and creates a magnetic field, the magnetic field collapses into teh other winding to produce higher or lower voltage depending on number of turns of wire

so all other things being equal, the more secondary turns the higher voltage (but less current) likewise the higher primary voltage the higher secondary (msd systems work on this theory) and higher primary current (electronic ignition) the higher secondary current (fatter spark)

I would say your performance increase comes from the bigger gap, bigger gap = more voltage needed to jump it which the coil will produce, bigger coil into normal gap wont give any bigger spark really

[SuziBlu]

lol ok, let me digest this a bit, 2 transformer coils, wired in parallel, and er, epoxy, lock out, one, and I asume, thats the first in line, and take the HT off the second, hmmmmm.

This requires some deep thought.

Ages back, i was having strange things happening, lights on, temp very quickly climbs, thought, er hello, stray voltage, surely, checked temp of my radiator by hand, cool, but temp gauge shows boiling. Ok, up to speed, turn lights off, temp goes back down to normal. OK, stray voltage. Into the shed she goes, and I had a close look, the earth leads to the body were melted, ahh ha.

This is when I thought, ok, too much earthing to the body, spotties, electronic fan etc.

So that was when i resurrected my disused welding leads and made a 400 amp 12" lead from the negative to the body, drama solved.

Fair go, since doing all my main leads in heavy duty lines, far superiour.

I tend to agree with the greater gap royce, 0.8mm is the standard by the book, I run 1.2mm, may try 1.4mm, can't fail, worst is a return to 1.2mm and a learning curve.

Here is a ponder, if the GT40 is a lesser voltage, and so, a lesser spark, why does it give greater response with a wider gap. Doesn't this mean that the GT40 is a superior coil.

Look at a lightning bolt, huge voltage, next to nothing in relation to current/amps. Amps do not make a spark, its voltage, so the higher the hotter the spark.

Main power lines are 22,000 volts, bugger all amps, transform that to 240 and high amps, same load upon the generator, but the 22,000 volts will jump a huge gap/spark.

er ?

[royce]

its the bigger plug gap giving the better response, if the coil can supply it theres no reason to go bigger

bit busy atm, but voltagte will jump the gap, amps are the difference between a pissy little spark and a big BANG that make people jump

also amps that kills you, not voltage

[MacDaddy]

Now i am totally lost

Ok, if the Bosch/Nippon Original Zook coil is $220, and the GT40 Coil is $70, and the GT40T is $90, and if they are all the same with different paint, then i know which one i will go for !

Perhaps i should just go with the GT40 Coil and open the spark gaps up to 1.2mm instead of 0.8mm...

Will a GT40T Transformer, burn out my electronic points ?
Or is it made for electronic points ?

Very confused now

[Rockhopper]

gt40 for electronic ignition gt40r for points

[royce]

gt40 for points with no resistor, most old pommie cars, gt40r for points with resistor, most old australian cars, few old toyotas, 1 litre sierras

open your plugs to 1.2mm gap with the stock coil, it will do it

[MacDaddy]

You guys are confusing me..... which isnt hard to do sometimes

I tried to Google GT40 and GT40 Specs/Info, not much joy...

So i went to the Bosch website, and looked up Ignition Coils -
http://www.bosch.com.au/content/language1/html/2250.htm
They have a downloadable 2007 PDF Inition Coils Catalogue...

Ok, the only listing they have for a Zook 4WD, is a 1977 to 1982 LJ80
, and it says it takes an GT40R or GT40RT...
So that was not much help...

Then i found this another simpler Bosch Catalogue, which actually tells you about the different types of coils and what they do -
http://apps.bosch.com.au/products/saa/i ... _coils.pdf

But the only listing they have is for a Sierra 1981 to 1985 1.0L, that takes a GT40R or GT40RT !

So when did they stop using a Resistor in the Zooks ?
Or, do they still use Resistors for pre GV's ?

I guess the only way i will know for sure if i have a resistor on mine or not, is to measure the voltage into the coil... Just hope i dont get a High Voltage Zap while doing it

[royce]

only the 1 litre and lj's were points and only ones with resistor