Hi all,
I thought I would share a couple of things that I recently found out. I
noticed that my distributor cap was getting trashed inside, it appeared
that the spark was striking to the side of the pin that the plug wire
connects to. I have the pertronix ignitor for the '76 Lucas CEI
distributor (the Lucas system with the black box mounted on the
firewall). After examining the distributor it became clear that the
coil was firing when the rotor was pointing between two of the pins in
the cap. The ignitor was mounted per the instructions. There are three
holes in the mounting plate. Two align with studs on the point plate
and one aligns with a screw hole, the screw secures the pertronix unit
to the point plate. If you install it like this you may see the problem
that I saw. The 3 holes are equidistant so I rotated the plate so that
the screw hole and one of the stud holes fit over the studs. now the
spark strikes dead center on the pin. This required threading both the
studs as they are only partially threaded, and you have to use a 6-40
nut which is hard to come by, (if anybody needs on I have some) then the
studs will secure the pertronix unit. If you see a lot of black dust in
your cap check to see if this is what is happening.
Secondly, I have a '76 head on my '78 engine. there were some cars
from I think serial # FM 800001 to FM 95000 or possibly FM 110000 that
did not have air injection ports in the head but instead a tube that
connected directly to the exh. manifold (they also did not have anti-run
on valves). I needed to plug the air injection ports in the head, they
are threaded 7/16-20, which is fairly easy to find a bolt for but
difficult to find an allen headed set screw for.I managed to find some
at a specialty parts supplier, but I had to buy a box, so if anyone is
not using an air pump or has an early head like mine and wants some of
these let me know.
Thirdly, there was a lot of talk awhile back about vacuum advance
on the Stromberg carburetor, I found that on my '76 carb that you can
use the EGR port on the top of carb for both the EGR valve actuation as
well as a port for the vacuum advance, provided you have the advance
type of distributor obviously. In addition you can use the bottom port
to control the air pump bypass valve if your manifold does not have a
port for it.
One last thing I installed bronze manganese valve guides in my head
when I rebuilt my engine about 10,000 miles ago. They work great, but I
also installed the valve stem seals that APT advertises. These
disintegrated and bits of rubber and stainless steel spring found their
way into my sump. I had carefully checked that the valve retainer was
not hitting the seal at full lift and the brass outer casing of the
seals appeared undamaged, they just fell apart. I have heard of other
people having this same problem, so I have to recommend against them
although like I said the valve guides are really good. I'm also not
knocking APT, in general I think they are a good company. So the Spit
is back on the road and I learned a few lessons the hard way!
Good luck with your cars,
Glenn Trunnell
'78 Spitfire
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