What is the correct condenser rating?

[rotorwrench]

Everything was designed for a purpose in the older ignition systems. Evolution of the systems made things much less complicated. The old Mallory/Ford design distributors were designed to work the way Henry wanted them to. Henry wanted the coil, breaker set, and distributor all on one package that would require little maintenance and there for chances of it being messed up by a person than wan't familiar with it. The coil evolved from the one that was designed to Henry's specs to one that was better for mass production and reliable function. This is where Mallory came in. The coils had to be specially made to fit the helmet distributors. These coils are different than the can type coils that were used on the Model A and eventually came back into vogue with the Load-O-Matic system in the 8BA era. The Mallory coils were matched to the 0.3 micro farad type capacitor by design. The can type coils were matched to the 0.24 micro farad capacitor by design. There is a formula that coil designers used back in the day to calculate what worked best for each coil design.

Henry Ford wanted the Helmet type distributors on his V8s and Marion Mallory Sr was the guy that helped him to develop it for mass production. Emil Zoerlein was the first of the Ford engineers tasked with setting it up the way Ford wanted it so he has to get some credit too but the evolution came from Mallory. It had automatic advance, duel points for better dwell time, and a vacuum brake for load spark timing control all in one neat simple package. Henry Ford and Marion Mallory were good friends and Henry gave him a lot of the subcontracts to manufacture his ignition components clear up till after Henry died in 1947.

Holley took over in the 8BA era with the combination of carburetor and ignition system. Mallory went on to the aftermarket and performance ignition systems. Mallory is now part of the Holley performance group.