Will a coil get too hot encased in a cover

[junkyardjeff]

In my quest to make the 235 I have in my 37 Chevy p/u look like the original 216 it has taken on a life of its own,I am down to a couple little details and I am thinking about sticking a modern coil in the case of the original.   The original ignition switch has a conduit coming out of it and attaches to the top of the coil so I am thinking about gutting a original coil and sliding the case over a modern coil,I was told the coil might get too hot being covered but I think chrome coil covers have been around for many years but I never used one so if I do this will the coil get too hot.

[wayne petty]

have you thought about using a thermal compound to aid in the heat transfer.?

the chrome coil covers i remember were open at the bottom and had a slot at the back to allow sizing over different coils..

when those were designed.. nobody thought about thermal heating issues.. you just wanted SHINE...

one thing...  in cutting the old coil..  i wonder what kinda oil is in the OLD ignition coil???  just a mineral oil..  or is it something like power transformer oil.. that might have PCB's in it.

i do not know the answer to this question..

i would probably ask some company that has been around a LONG time.. perhaps wellsve.com  but include an application of the original coil..  and a brand if possible..   they may have to do some research as its probably not a question that has ever been ask before..

[oj]

Another consideration is getting the ignition circuit resistance right, if not the heat will be greater - up to burning the ignition out.
Befor i did the actual cutting etc i would run the coil etc as proposed but leave it exposed and see what kind of heat you need to deal with.  After getting the bugs out then see about integrating and making it look original.
I keep having to relearn that there is nothing that we get that is actually useable 'out of the package', the simplest of inanimite devices won't act as expected and something as complicatedas an ignition coil (lucky for you it has no internal moving parts or it'd take a team of nasa engineers to debug it) is best approached with trepidation and caution.

[oj]

the circuit resistance will need about 3 ohms, read the resistance across the coil and if it is - for instance - 1.5 ohms than you need a resistor of another 1.5ohms in series to get a total of 3ohms.