Moss Motors, Ltd

I have a question about the Pertronix Flame Thrower Distro. I bought one from Moss and bought what I thought was the matching coil for it. The unit goes on my 1973 Midget.
I previously had a Crane Cams x3000 with the E Coil.
So I order the Pertronix...which has the entire electronic ignition built into the distro with no need of an outer "box",  and I bought the matching coil that Moss has for sale.
When I got it...I read the instructions and it plainly says that the coil HAS to be 3.0 ohms for that distro. I looked at the coil and it was a 1.5 ohm coil!
So I called Moss Motors and the guy on the other end told me that I needed to put my ballast back on to make my distro work. That my car HAD to have it's ballast.
Now somebody correct me if I'm wrong...but isn't that the kind of thing that is determined by the distributor? The distributor itself says it requires a 3 ohm coil for a 4 cylinder engine. Moss sold a 1.5 ohm distro.
I explained that to the guy but he was pretty insistent on the need for the ballast. Though he did finally concede that if the distro says 3 ohms...the 1.5 wouldn't work.
I explained to him that since I had been using the Crane Cams electronic ignition for the last 8 years or so...I have not had a ballast connected in all that time.
But he said that no matter what I did with this Flame Thrower distro I HAVE to have that ballast.
So...do I?
I returned the 1.5 ohm coil to Moss and just went straight to the Pertronix site and bought a 3 ohm coil.
But do I need to get a ballast for this thing? Or am I good to go without it?
The guy at Moss has got me worried about it. LOL!  And if you were to remove a ballast from an original points distro...what would the result be? Would the car crank? Or would it be completely dead?
Help guys!
thanks,
-Robbie

The Moss guy is wrong. The 1978-79 Midgets were the ONLY Spridgets with a ballast resistor. All others are internally-ballasted. No, it is not determined by the distributor (other than some of the electronics), it is determined by the car's wiring and solenoid. The 78-9 Midgets have a WLG wire from the solenoid to the coil which bypasses the high-resistance wire used as a ballast. This gives a hotter spark while trying to start the engine. Upon releasing the key, the ballasted wire takes over the task of powering the coil.

 ALL Spridget coils are ballasted. The 3-ohm coils have the ballast IN the coil; the 1.5-ohm coils expect an external ballast resistor. There is a fancy electronic theory explaining why which boils down to the fact that physical laws governing the transformer action of the coil cause the ability of the coil to saturate the windings fast enough for high-rpm sparks goes down as the voltage goes up. Around 9 or 10 volts winds up being optimum for the output voltages and sparks per minute that we need, so the voltage to the coil is stepped down accordingly.

You need a 3-ohm coil for your 73. Pertronix does make one.

David Lieb
 

The ballast for the coil is what I'm talking about. I did get the 3 ohm coil for the Pertronix distro. So are you saying that I don't need a ballast for the coil?
The car is running just horrible. At first I thought it was my ignition...so I checked and rechecked it with teh Crane Cams system I had for years.
Then I replaced the head gasket, manifold gasket, head studs, set the valve clearance, replaced the fuel filter...and still it acts like it has no power.
I can crank it...but once it's under load it dies.
I'm sort of stumped.