Initial Setup with Electronic Ignition.

PostPost by: cbguerrajr » Sat Dec 30, 2017 1:35 am

I have a Petronix distributor and had similar challenges during the initial set up. I ended up putting a small piece of tape on the outside, bottom edge of the distributor cap to mark the exact position of the #1 post while looking at the inside of the cap. then i turned the distributor so the leading edge of the rotor is at said mark, with the engine at TDC. That was enough to get it started and running (poorly!), then used a strobe to fine tune
Seems to me your engine should have been able to get started even with 10 deg retard, without crazy backfires.
As someone else said, could the wrong HT wire have been hooked to the strobe, like #4 instead of #1 ?

Carlos G
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PostPost by: vincereynard » Sun Dec 31, 2017 9:28 pm

Well there's a funny thing! I set it up as advised by the instructions - crank at TDC , rotor arm pointing at No1 plug lead and nothing. Not a peep. Unfortunately the brand new strobe refused to work as well.

A friend had given me an ancient in line strobe that fits between plug and lead. I pointed it at the marks and nothing showed. At it happens I have marked the pulley with arrows pointing to the firing notch which showed it retarded big time. Luckily the strobe reached underneath and by shining up past the chassis showed it firing at about the water pump cover / sump line. 40 degrees retarded??

I quick couple of tweaks and it was at 10 degrees (ish) - it fired and ran almost immediately.

I'll lift the distributor cap and image where the trigger ring is at firing point for future reference.

It then started to run ragged and missing - I'd forgotten to turn on the electric fuel pump before the latest attempt. :oops: (I turned it off before checking the strobe for obvious reasons.)


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PostPost by: john.p.clegg » Mon Jan 01, 2018 7:20 am

Vince

I think that would be a good enough starting point then fine tune with a strobe?

John :wink:
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PostPost by: vincereynard » Mon Jan 01, 2018 3:42 pm

Bit of an own goal.

By fitting a new ignition module, it appears I replaced an old part that worked with a new part that didn't.
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PostPost by: vincereynard » Sun Jan 07, 2018 5:31 pm

I've now strobed the ignition to 10 degrees .

Setting the engine at 10 and whipping the cap off shows the trigger ring magnets line up pointing directly at No1 plug lead.

In future I shall use this as the initial setup. That should save a lot of faffing about.
screenshot-from-2018-01-07-15-42-52.png and
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