Last Tuesday I was all set to start the car after a weekend of bad weather and other activities; however, the proceedings were halted after I found that I had no spark. There wasn’t enough time to troubleshoot before having to rush off to coach my daughter’s soccer game followed by the start of a 2-day business trip in Greensboro, NC, so we pushed the car back in the basement. While in Greensboro, I called ERA with wiring questions, and spoke to Pertronix about IgnitorII module tests, plus exchanged a few emails with other car guys about coil isolation tests….I basically tried to cover everything from the coil to the sparkplugs so that once I could get back on the troubleshooting, things could be found quickly. As luck would have it, the first tests I did with the coil isolation proved out the problem area. The coil didn’t show any visual signs of failure, and tested the proper amount of resistance between the terminals, but it wasn’t producing spark. I ended up snagging one off my MG, hooked it up, and verified that it was good. I then went on to test that the Pertronix module in the dizzy was good – and it was. At that time, I knew we had a pretty good chance now of getting the engine to start.
About 10am, Dad arrived and we pushed the car outside, my wife took some video, and the rest is history. In the following “First Start” vid, there’s no hooligan rev-ing. This is the real deal with fuel pressure, timing, synchronization, and idle circuit trimming adjustments still to be made. I had to laugh at myself after seeing this video b/c I appeared to be so full of nerves – it’s amazing what you can tell from body language..
So following the initial start, I set the timing and fuel pressure, then went on to the syncro & idle setting, followed by the idle circuit trimming. It smoothed out quite nicely and rev’d up to infinity quite nicely with no hesitation at all. The road test then proved how well Jim’s initial jetting works and I really can’t perceive anything I would want to change in that regard…progression from low to high circuits is virtually seamless. I’m very pleased.
One thing I have yet to correct is a bit of a coolant consumption problem that I’m suspecting is coming from possibly both the #1 and #5 cylinders due to their proximity to the Intake coolant ports. I followed the torqueing sequence and recommendations on gasket preparation/installation, but we shall see following my re-torque how the consumption looks. I’m not seeing anything visual coming from the pipes, but the coolant level is definitely reducing significantly (as in more than just system burping) after each drive and the #1 & #5 plugs are visually “cleaner” than the others. More to come on this. Worst case, I’m going to pull the carbs/intake, and replace the Fel-pro printoseal 1262S-3 intake gaskets with some thicker gaskets from SCE.
Here are a few shots of ERA#2124 and the completed IDA set-up. The system runs as good as it looks!
-Allen.