Carl:
I had a similar problem with my ' 67 Midget at the Atlanta Historics a few
weeks ago. I lost all power going into turn one, but had no strange noises
or warning. I turned off the accusump, raised my arm, and pulled safely off
the track on the inside of turn two. With eight laps to figure what the
problem was, I decided it must be electrical. After the checker was thrown,
I climbed back over the wall and popped the hood. All the wires looked
intact but I gave them a push anyway. As the tow truck pulled up, I turned
the ignition on and everything worked normally. I drove back to my paddock
with no problems.
The culprit was the low tension lead from the coil to the distributor. The
spade connector didn't come off the distributor, the wire crimped into the
end of the connector came out! It was an easy fix, of course, but not easy
to find.
At 11:45 AM 11/06/2000 -0800, Carl McLelland wrote:
>For you technical buffs out there, this one is a stumper for me.
>
>At Sears Point, October 28-29, I had an ignition problem that I'm at a loss
>to resolve. The car is a series 1 Alpine with a series 5 (1725cc) engine, 12
>volt with the polarity reversed to negative ground. The engine is basically
>stock, with Zenith carbs and a Mallory dual point distributor. I'm also
>using a Mallory ballast resistor.
>
>On Saturday, in the rain, temperature around 65 degrees, the car ran
>fantastic, easily attaining 6500rpm in 4'th gear. We finished 2'nd overall.
>On Sunday, on a dry track with the temperature again around 65 degrees, the
>performance was the same until the start of the 3'rd lap. At this point, as
>I was entering turn 1, the engine stopped running..... just as if I had
>turned the ignition off. All attempts at a restart failed.
>
>After the end of the race when the tow truck arrived to tow me in, just for
>kicks, I hit the starter and she came to life as though nothing had ever
>gone wrong. I drove it around to the pits and up onto the trailer.
>
>The next morning I fired it up and drove it off the trailer and into the
>shop. It started right up but the ignition cut out if I tried to take it
>over 2000rpm. The next day I started it and it ran through the entire rpm
>range without hesitation.
>
>The fuel system works fine; no problem here.
>
>The timing was correct.
>
>The ballast resister showed 1 ohm of resistance. The specs for the resistor
>are 0.75 - 1.5 ohms, so no problem here.
>
>I pulled the distributor and removed the points. One set of points showed
>correct point gap and normal pitting for the amount of use. The other set of
>points looked like they had been a plate for arc welding, with the entire
>surface of the points badly pitted and rough. The gap appeared to be
>correct; given the amount of pitting.
>
>I replaced the points, condensor, ballast resistor, timed it and it runs
>perfectly. Further inspection revealed one wire lead from the ballast
>resistor to the coil that "wasn't as tight as I would like (but not falling
>off, either)", which I tightened. Further, I inspected every wire and
>connection between the engine and ground or back through the circuit to the
>ignition/starting switches and no other problems.
>
>Has anybody out there experienced similar problems? What was your cure?
>
>Anybody have any idea what may have gone wrong? I'd sure hate to be at the
>front of the pack again this weekend at Thunder Hill and have a similar
>thing happen.
>
>Thanks in advance!
> Carl McLelland
> email: carlmcle@saturnnet.com
> web: http://carlynneracing.homestead.com/home.html
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