Ballast resistor & resistance wire, aftermarket ignitions

[Doug Rasmussen <76075.2276@domain.elided>]

   I knew that the ballast resistor is supposed to be removed from the hot
lead to the coil when an aftermarket electronic ignition system is
installed.   When I put my Jacob's system in, there wasn't any ballast
resistor so I assumed a po had taken it out.

  Snooping through the 800 shop manual I found IH used a resistance wire
instead of the ballast resistor.  The book says  72" wire length for 1.8
ohms.  So  I ran a new wire from the ignition switch over to the Jacob's
bypassing the voltage dropping wire and giving the full battery voltage to
the ignition.

  This was a two hour job.  A few miles of test driving last night and it
seemed like I had more power.  I wonder if I'm just imagining the
performance increase.  Has anyone else done this and noticed any
improvement?  I assume the ignition output is proportional to the voltage
input, if so, I'm getting a hotter spark.

Doug, who likes to believe every change is an improvement.