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Way to go Jack You are da MAN. Thank you very much. Please put Garnett Ks on your travel list this summer. July 17-19. Giving away lots of $$$$ ,dash for cash, sat. night party, vendors, trophies,awards banquet,free beer, and we're moving to the big lake Cedar Valley Reservoir. Try to be there!
For most standard magneto ignitions (and even battery ignitions), a condenser of capacity 1.5 microfarads (mfd) is correct. The quite-hot belt-driven magnetos on OMC V4s in 1959 thru the early 1960s used a condenser of 1.9 mfd, probably because of speading the capacity among the 4 cylinders, to provide enough coil-saturation time for the overall ignition among the 4 cylinders supplied by the magneto's single big coil.
That ol' 4-cyl OMC coil was super hot, incidentally, and could throw a half-inch blue spark thru thin air under test in the workshop. I often wondered why racers did not try somehow to adapt it, and then the mid-60s Merc Thunderbolt CDI came along! End of speculation.
B4 finally adapting a Thunderbolt to my Quncy Z engines in 1978, I used OMC coils and condensers on my early Loopers for a stronger ignition than Christner was selling then. Part of that was working for a Johnson dealer. Evinrude was having trouble with their new V4 90s, & Johnson was too. Johnson reckoned that the problem was in the inefficient carb, and they were right. Evinrude reckoned that the problem was also in the ignition coils, and they were wrong. So I got several free sets of brand-new "recalled" Johnrude ignition coils to use for my racing, might still have some.
To sum up, I think (from my USAF radar-maintenance background) that you can go to any automotive parts store and buy any ignition condenser, and it'll work OK, so long as you can get it to fit or with a little soldering, make it fit. What used to cost 60 cents, however, will be 5$ plus, so choose the best fit carefully.
Mr. dwhitford, thank you for the insight. I too was thinking along those lines and you're right those old OMC magneto's would light you up if you weren't careful. I'll give your advice a try, thanks.
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