I've been having some strange issues with the spitfire
recently. The plugs I installed about a month ago
seemed to work fine after tuning. But in the past few
weeks, I'd noticed a strange hunting idle. I tried
turning up the low idle speed screws up to increase
the idle (thinking it was humidity or temp changes
causing the car to act funny), but it didn' seem to
help except make the car run richer.
When I pulled the plugs a few weeks ago, I thought it
strange that the #2 plug looked almost clean (new)
compared to the others, even though I'd driven about
1000 miles with them in.
On friday I took the car out for a short drive before
the rains were expected to hit (as they were
forcasting rain for the next 5-7 days and I new I'd be
going through withdrawl) to get a drop-top driving fix
and to put some gas in the car. I got about 1 mile
from my house when the car started to sputter and lose
power.
I recognized the symptoms as similar to those of
someone else recently had (I think they had burnt a
hole in a piston). Not to jump to conclusions, I
pulled over and started to diagnose the problem, to
make sure that I hadn't just lost fuel
pressure/flooded the engine or lost a plug wire.
After checking for fuel in the lines and listening for
the pump to be pumping, I then turned the car over
(which it did very hesitantly after cranking for about
15 seconds). It was now SUPER rough at idle and didn't
appear to be much better when I increased throttle. A
small crowed gathering around to chime in with 'handy
conversation'. "That's a Tr6 right?". "You know what
the problem is? I do. It's British." "That's out of
warranty right?" <- I thought it strange that there
were people were just standing around in the middle of
a parking lot. But I didn't have much choice where it
decided to die.
Turns-out that my car had decided to die in front of
the Tas-Tee-Diner where the local mopar,ford,chevy
owners have their Friday night gathering. And soon the
pony and muscle cars started to trickle in, and I'm
thinking "Lord, what did I do to deserve this?"
I unplugged the plug wires from each plug in turn,
after making sure that the coil had good contacts.
It turns out that the car's idle had no change when I
unplugged the #2 wire, but dropped even further
towards dieing when I pulled any of the other wires. I
popped-open the dizzy cap to make sure that the points
hadn't come loose from the set screw and that the cap
was in good condition.
With the help of one of the car guys holding the plug
against the block, I found that the #2 plug wouldn't
fire. Another attendee asked me "What kind of plugs
are they? And I said "Splitfires", and he goes 'well,
s**t. No wonder!" Just to make sure I swapped the
plugs 1 and 2 just to make sure that it wasn't a cap,
wire or wobbely distributor issue. And with the plug
moved, I still couldn't get it to spark on the #1
position.
I hot footed it (ran) over to the local track auto
about 2 blocks away and picked-up some Bosche plugs. I
replaced the "bad" plug, and it fired right up, and in
fact the car idled at approximately 200 rpms higher
than before (1000 rpm).
I always thought that plugs are plugs (the only reason
I used Splitfires, was because I thought it was
gitchy. Spitfire/splitfire <- I know. I'm retarded.)
Anyhow, I've used splitfires almost since day 1 and
this is the first time I've had a problem with them.
>From now on I'm going to use the Bosche's and keep a
spare set in the trunk.
-Terry
'76 spitfire 1500
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