Shannon, intersting that you mention Mr. Joule. I just learned about him watching "Nova" on PBS the other night.

Thanks for the explanation. I was not thinking crazy high-voltage coil, just a blue bosch volvo coil. I'm trying to keep the car as "Volvo" as possible

I'm curious about the death of the allison myself. I was running a stock coil, which is same coil that paired with the setup for most of its life. That is, the E-gnition was installed into a 67 wagon, and I eventually put that same coil, distributor, and e-gnition into my 68 sedan. After I put a B20E into the wagon, I was using an 1800E blue bosch coil for a while with the setup.

Recalling this morning, it failed quite spectacularly. I suspect that something inside the case burned up or shorted out. One second it was idling nicely, then pop, poof it was dead - right at a stoplight...

I picked up another blue bosch coil for the sedan and that's what I will be using shortly. However, the allison unit died with a 67 stock coil in place. It was weird and sudden, but I did have a faint indication that there were problems this week. Nothing severe, just a little hesitation at high idle. I figured that I had advanced the distributor too far and it was pinging... I guess not.

After comparing prices as IPD and looking at how much you have to set up, the Perlux/Pertronix looks like the best price and least obtrusive. Unless someone soundly recommends against it, that's probably the route I'll go. It's also significantly cheaper than the crane ($89.00 versus 163.00)