Im still having a hard time seeing it.

an ignition coil works because there is a winding around a metal core which induces a higher voltage on a secondary winding. the spark is created in the secondary coil when the field is broken. a high voltage is also created in the primary windings but that drains off through the condensor. read this article here.

http://abbysenior.com/mechanics/ignition.htm

a straight piece of wire will not produce a high voltage by connecting and disconnecting a power source to it. you need a transformer to do that and then it depends on the primary to secondary coil winding relationship. It will create a magnetic field around it.

are you saying the magnetic fiels from all the wires are inducing higher volatges on all the other wires? then it seems none of our cars should work and that when we shut them off we will have the situation you have described- i.e., collapsng a field and creating a damaging high voltage spike.

im going to try the disconnecting the battery trick because I dont see the mechanics of why it would happen. 400v seems highly unlikely.

Heres, my theory- the battery is used to start the car. the alternator charges the battery. when the car is running, the alternator is outputing 14v which goes straight to the battery through the ammeter. so with the car running, you have the 12v from the battery and the the 14v from the alternator connected together. the 14v from the alt being higher than the 12v in the battery, charges the battery. remove the battery and the alternator HAS NO IDEA THAT IT IS MISSING. It still is suppling 14v to the rest of the circuit which in turn keeps everything at the same potential. so why would it jump up in voltage???? The alternator puts out higher or lower current depending on the needs of the system.

other cars may have some funky circuit that powers the voltage regulator off the battery alone and which shuts down the alternator when the battery is disconnected (thereby shutting down the car cause there is NO voltage source for the ignition after the alt turns off and the battery is disconnected ) but the 60's and 70' mopars arent one of them.

and all transistors ARE NOT the same. some are high power, some are low power. high power transistors in the ignition system take a lot of brunt force. low power transistors in a microprocessor take very little to damage them (hence the expensive voltage regulation circuits in computers)

but like I said, I'm gonna try it and see what the voltage goes to. unfortunatly, I need to wait until i replace my battery cause it died a while ago and I havent replaced it yet.