Always remember the old sayings

Post date: Sep 22, 2012 11:37:40 PM

Today's lesson is "90% of all carb problems are ignition problems."

I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what I had done. There was one spot a couple weeks ago where the idle was really good, then I just had the worst luck.

Then I remembered I had switched back to the new dizzy. While it was finally showing consistent spark per the timing light, the idle was just terrible. I did notice that it looked like misses coming off the coil wire, but each spark plug looks like it was very consistent.

So back in goes the old Ignitor I. The big problem I had with that one is it has way too much mechanical advance for this setup, so I pulled it apart to do that old trick of welding up the slot then opening as appropriate.

Well, I managed to completely destroy the points cam, which is bad for a lobe sensing ignitor.

So, another run to the part store to buy a reman.

Get that prepped and in and it's suddenly much better behaved!

I also moved the o2 sensor to the other pipe since it leaks less (should have a better reading).

The major news? Summit agreed to take back the coil and dizzy on exchange for some Accel parts! Hopefully I'll have them in a couple of weeks.

It now pings under light acceleration around town when the a/f hits 16:1. Pulled back the vacuum advance a couple of turns and that helps, still pings a little, but impacted idle quite a bit. So I'm leaving it there for now and just being careful with it. Got another 60 miles or so. The secondaries still stick, so still driving on the primaries. Primary circuit is 50B rods, 71 jets, and the APT is almost all the way out, but still cruises around at about 13:1. I'm not going to mess with it much more until I have the new ignition stuff in there. Can't go leaner than 50B rods, so I really hope it makes best power with 69 jets. I think I also have a set of 70s.... Also need to make sure the power piston tang is actually going down when I pull out the screw! I do see changes, but only to a point. Could even shorten the power piston, but that's crazy talk.

With the engine in a stable state, I switched back to the other body and fixing my major mistakes. Welding body panels ain't easy. Also organized some of my piles of junk and found things I didn't realize I had!