Hey all,

I don't have much experience here but I was wondering if "upgrading" my old ignition coil would be a worthwhile upgrade. I have no idea what coil is on my car now. It has a black housing and while it visually looks fine and works fine, I was wondering if I might get a bit more power or more efficient burn if I was to replace it with something newer. Here are a couple I ran across while browsing online. Is this something that is worth upgrading? And if it is, is there anything I need to look out for when choosing a coil?

 

These look to be nothing fancy:

 

http://www.autopartswarehouse.com/details/QQSubaruQQBratQQReplacementQQIgnition_CoilQQ19781979QQREPO504601.html

 

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/ado-e552c/overview/year/1979/make/subaru/model/brat

 

"High Performance":

 

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/acc-8140/overview/year/1979/make/subaru/model/brat

Do you have the points or electronic ignition? Having a lower primary resistance (or higher amount of secondary windings) would increase the current draw on the driver/points and the increased load could overheat/corrode them, respectively. Unless you have a loss of power from weak spark/blowout specifically, you might not get any difference in performance/economy. For a street driven car with a generally stock engine, I wouldn't bother. I got absolutely nothing from my race car (not a Subaru) that had a weak stock igntiion system, replacing it with a MSD 6AL controller and Blaster SS coil. All it did was eat the distributor cap/rotor faster. I don't plan on replacing my original 1978 wagon's coil unless it exhibits weak spark issues. Note that it does have electronic ignition, which compared to points is probably a far more worthwhile thing to do over a bigger coil.

I've swapped to electronic dizzy and performance cool on my ea81. It runs beautifully but the distributor was the biggest improvement by far.