Checking with the experts (ignition upgrades)

So, one of the basic upgrades for the M10 powered E21 is an ignition upgrade.

One of the oldest and most basic ignition upgrades has been as follows;

Bosch "red" coil

77-79 cap and rotor

8mm performance plug wires

Autolite AR52 racing plugs gapped at .050"

It's time for a tune up because everything except the plugs are factory originals and I thought for a litlle extra dough I would go ahead and upgrade.

However I was not able to find a "red" coil. All the usual places didn't have any and talking with one of the vendors he said it's likely no one would be getting any again.

So plan B. After a little research I decided to bite the bullet and ordered an MSD Blaster 2 coil, Accel 8.8 stainless steel spiral core wires and the set of AR 52 plugs. The 77-79 cap and rotor is to allow the plug wires to attach the cap. The 80-83 cap will not work.

Even though my car has electronic ignition I have been told I need to run the supplied 0.8 ohm resistor by a gentleman who is running the same coil on his car. Can anyone verify?

Anyone have any experience with a Blaster 2 coil? I've read a couple bad reviews but it's mostly been positive.

How about the Accel wires?

It's too late to change my mind because I have the parts here looking at me but with all the choices out there I'm second guessing my components.

Well I messed up when I ordered the wires. Seems I ordered solid core wires that will not supress rfi and emi.

So second go around I went to the local Pep boys and picked up a set of 8mm universal streetfire by MSD. They where advertised with having around 500 Ohms per foot.

I got interested in the resistance so I pulled one of my stock wires and it came in at a little over 6300 Ohms per foot. So I checked the streetfire and the first one had just over 5000 Ohms per foot. Hmmm.. not what I was expecting. After re-checking it several times and checking the rest of the wires they averaged out at just a little over 5000 Ohms.

I started to feel really dissappointed, but luckily I noticed that I again had bought the wrong wires. I need straight boots and these where 90*.

So take three. I bought a set of MSD 8.5 mm Super Conductor wires. Advertised at 40-50 Ohms per foot but still able to supress emi. Being skeptical of them the first thing I did was check the resistance. Averaged out at 43 Ohms per foot.

All I'm waiting for is my cap and rotor to arrive and I should have a nicely upgraded ignition system.

So much marketing involved with this crap. I was really dissappointed that the streetfire wires where so far off there claimed ratings. I didn't get a chance to measure the Accels.