[Lugnutz65]

Am I confused? Do you agree that a ballast resistor or resistor wire is NOT needed to properly install a Pertronix unit in my distributor?

Sorry for the long post.

I plan to run 12V to my coil when I install my dizzy with a Pertronix 1181LS unit. The Pertronix instructions show that the Pertronix unit MUST have a full 12 bolts to the red wire. There are 2 illustrations in the instructions (see photo below). One shows a ballast resistor and the other is without a resistor.

My 1965 C10 has the AAW Classic Update kit. Installed it myself when I had an inline 230 with HEI dizzy. So I had no resistor. I followed AAW directions for an HEI dizzy to the letter and everything was fine.

Now swapping to V8 SBC 283 with a Pertronix points deletion in the dizzy.
An HEI dizzy needs a full 12V. Fine. I did that. No problems.
A dizzy with POINTS uses either a resistor wire to the + side of the coil or a ballast resistor. I’ve read that if you eliminate the resistor wire or ballast resistor in a POINTS system you will burn up the points fairly quickly. Points need the 12V at startup which is supplied by the wire going from the starter to the + side of the coil. Then when the key is in the RUN position, the resistor wire or ballast resistor takes over and drops the voltage to the + side of the coil down to somewhere just above 9.5 volts.

Since the points are no longer inside the dizzy, I can’t burn the points. So no need to drop the voltage down to less than 12.
As I study the diagram #3 with the ballast resistor, I see that the red Pertronix wire is on the 12V side of the ballast resistor. My coil has slightly over 3 ohms of internal resistance and the Pertronix unit I have requires over 1.5 ohms, so I’m fine there.