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The ballast keeps cuts the voltage to the coil. A Blaster 2 can handle 12 volts, as would any 12 volt coil.

The "concern" about not running a ballast is that the transistor in the ECU will heat up and burn out with 12 volts flowing through it. Has nothing to do w/ the coil.

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The ballast resistor serves (2) purposes, it drops the voltage but also prevents higher current to the coil as well. Plus as it heats up its resistance increases which drops the input voltage to coil lowering its output voltage..

The coil is capable to handle the higher voltages for short durations OK but since it typically constructed of hundreds of turns of thin 28 gauge wire, sustained cycles of higher voltage along with the current the coil will fail. Think about much like flashlite batteries, a D cell and an AA or both rated @1.5V but the D cell can hold it voltage capability longer as it has the current reserve..

The coil is a voltage step-up transformer, as the coil overheats its efficiency (output voltage) will drop. The ECU is simply a switch triggered by the distributor pickup that turns the coil on/off..

For an MSD box which does multiple switching is able to fire the coil to a higher voltage as it switches on the coil in shorter sequential intervals so the it doesn't heat up as fast...

Just my $0.02..

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