Posting this in hopes it will be useful information for someone. (Basically trying to satisfy the requirements of 2 seperate companies)
Okay so for starters i have a 1988 OMC 350 that someone before me had installed a petronix ignitor II electronic ignition paired with a .7ohm msd blaster coil. Without the ESA bypassed, my engine would always stall rather than stumble like it should. That told me that i need to replace my ESA module. I purchased the CDI 123- 9898 module and went to install. Pulled the old one off and my heart sank since it was the same exact one, dated back to 2005 though.. anyways, if you read the cdi instructions it will tell you that it needs to see 3ohm of resistance at the 2 prong plug on the engine side, purple and gray if my memory serves me right. Being i had a .7 ohm coil i thought well that must be my stalling issue. To remedy this problem i went and purchased a 3ohm flamethrower coil against what pertronix recommends for an 8cyl engine. Pertronix doesn't reccomend using a coil greater than 1.5 ohm on an engine greater than 6cyl, and a ballast resistor/ wire is out of the question because they also recommend that the electronic ignition sees a full 12volts. After i installed the 3ohm coil with my new ESA module i crossed my fingers and the engine fired right up and the ESA worked as it should. Was real excited until the engine/ coil warmed up and it began to misfire on no.1 cyl as i was setting the advance timing. I said the heck with it and put the old MSD blaster coil back on and to this day it runs and shifts as it should. I called CDI on this topic and explained the situation. The tech told me that even though the instructions say the ESA needs to see 3ohm, it only really needs to see about an ohm and he said that my .7 ohm coil should work just fine and my CDI is still under warenty. This was all about a month or so ago and so far so good. I just thought this would be a good topic to share and i know a lot of people take the pertronix path when switching to electronic ignition and there is a lot of OMC 350s out there still.
Okay so for starters i have a 1988 OMC 350 that someone before me had installed a petronix ignitor II electronic ignition paired with a .7ohm msd blaster coil. Without the ESA bypassed, my engine would always stall rather than stumble like it should. That told me that i need to replace my ESA module. I purchased the CDI 123- 9898 module and went to install. Pulled the old one off and my heart sank since it was the same exact one, dated back to 2005 though.. anyways, if you read the cdi instructions it will tell you that it needs to see 3ohm of resistance at the 2 prong plug on the engine side, purple and gray if my memory serves me right. Being i had a .7 ohm coil i thought well that must be my stalling issue. To remedy this problem i went and purchased a 3ohm flamethrower coil against what pertronix recommends for an 8cyl engine. Pertronix doesn't reccomend using a coil greater than 1.5 ohm on an engine greater than 6cyl, and a ballast resistor/ wire is out of the question because they also recommend that the electronic ignition sees a full 12volts. After i installed the 3ohm coil with my new ESA module i crossed my fingers and the engine fired right up and the ESA worked as it should. Was real excited until the engine/ coil warmed up and it began to misfire on no.1 cyl as i was setting the advance timing. I said the heck with it and put the old MSD blaster coil back on and to this day it runs and shifts as it should. I called CDI on this topic and explained the situation. The tech told me that even though the instructions say the ESA needs to see 3ohm, it only really needs to see about an ohm and he said that my .7 ohm coil should work just fine and my CDI is still under warenty. This was all about a month or so ago and so far so good. I just thought this would be a good topic to share and i know a lot of people take the pertronix path when switching to electronic ignition and there is a lot of OMC 350s out there still.