Hi Tony. The 1-line summary to your question is Yes; the original
capacitor can be replaced by an external
capacitor but it has to be well specified. I carried one of these in my glovebox spares kit before I went to the Lumenition system.
It is 0.22uF with a 1KV d.c. rating and a 300V a.c. rating which is a bit marginal on a.c. rating but it got me out of trouble on just the one occasion. One parameter that is not specified is ripple current rating.
http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/polypropy ... s/0114610/
But hey; it worked.
I had it on croc; clips so I could just clip it to the coil negative and a bolt near the distributor for earth. It would work if the original
capacitor went open circuit, but not if it went short circuit. The black lead to the original
capacitor would have to be removed and taped back for it to work in that case.
The original
capacitor value is specd; at 0.18 to 0.23uF.
HTH,
Tony M.