Re: power amplifier?
I would think that's possible, you'd have to put a condenser in there somewhere to take care of arcing across the points. There may or may not be enough spark energy to run the motor; if not, try adding a performance coil.<br /><br />Or, perhaps you could adapt an automotive CD ign pack. Lots of the old points-style ign's triggered a CD box and that's the same principle used here. Just be sure the coil is matched to the ign.<br /><br />I suspect they went to this, because they thought it was a better idea, one of the (Seems Like !) 9 Million different ign systems that OMC just HAD to use on their '60's and early 70's motors! <br /><br />As far as I'm concerned, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the old-style belt-driven distributor that was battery-powered. If you replaced the crummy old stock coil with an automotive performance coil, they had plenty hot spark and were extremely reliable & easy to service. <br /><br />Well, OMC took care of that with their 'improved' CDI ign's didn't they. <br /><br />Thank Goodness they went to the easier-to-live-with CDI power packs, they may go bad sometimes but I'll take them Hands Down over the older systems!<br /><br />BTW, my idea of using a Merc Distributor-type power pack would probably work in your case. If you jumper the brown and white terminals on the distributor side of the Merc switchbox, grounding the black terminal makes the box fire. The points would be connected to the black terminal. Constant +12V is applied to the red terminal on the box, and switched +12V is hooked to the white terminal.<br /><br />Use a smaller-style Merc coil and you're in business!! Lots of these boxes are on eBay at any given time. Be sure you don't get an ADI box, they are quite different with all the terminals in the front of the box. The disributor boxes have there terminals on the side. You'd want one from an older Merc 800-4, 850-4. Also I imagine one from an older distributor-model Inline Six should work, too.<br /><br />The only other concern I'd have is whether the stock OMC ign was a make-to-fire or break-to-fire.<br /><br />The Merc box fires when grounded (i.e. make-to-fire), whereas a standard non-electronic ign would be break-to-fire.<br /><br />Definitely have to figure that out, it's only going to work one way or the other. Just remove the flywheel, pull the dist cap & rotor, and rotate the crank clockwise. Watch the points and see how they operate.<br /><br />HTH and keep us posted.........ed
