Jamie Bump The Engine Over Till You Have No-1 Cyl At Tdc Compresson , Move The Balancer To 6 Btc Then Turn Key On ,don't Start Loosen Dist Remove Coil Wire From Cap Hold Close To Grd And Move Dist Till You Get A Spark Lock Dist Down At That Point This Will Give You Inital Timing Without A Lite From There You Can Tweak It Up Remember The Dura Puts Out More Voltage And The Plugs Need To Be Set About 50th Did This Only Happen After You Did The Dura?
Yea, only started after doing the Duraspark. The plugs are new, have about 150 miles on them. I gapped them to .50 with a feeler gauge (I don't have a plug gapping thing) before putting them in, so they should be fine. Thanks, I'll give that a try whenever this rain stops...
Do you have the advance connected to the correct vacuum port on your carb? I wouldn't run it without vacuum advance becuase the built in mechanical advance may not be enough at higher RPM's ... If you get a timing light you can watch how much your timing is advancing as you apply throttle ...
Also doing away with the vacuum advance will hurt your gas mileage plus your part throttle drivability. You can check the diaphram in the vacuum advance by just trying to suck air through the hose. If you can pull air it's ruptured. Also, alot of the vacuum canisters are adjustable. Pull the hose off the nipple and stick either a 3/32 or 1/8" allen wrench in there. If you feel it go into a fitting and you can turn it then it's adjustable. You can sometimes see it also. I think turning the nut left backs off the vacuum and turning it in adds advance. I remember getting a rebuilt duraspark once that made my 71 spark knock no matter where I set the timing. Turned out the vacuum advance was screwed all the way in. As soon as vacuum got to it it would pull in gobbs of advance. clint
Yep, I'm positive it's hooked up correctly. Looks like I got some more tinkering to do when this rain stops.
You don't need to set your plugs at .050 (although you can if you want to). I set mine at .040, which is still more than the .032-.036 that the original points ignition are set at. It's easy to check the vacuum advance. Although this method may seem crude, if you take the dist cap off and suck on the hose from the vac-advance canister, you should be able to see it advance. If you can blow air through the hose, then your vac-advance diaphragm is bad...
Jamie Just Cked Ford With Dura Plugs 48-52 Recommended May Want To Look At Coil Breaking Down On A Load
No, I am not. I have not had the time/money/whatever/energy to get one yet. For all I know it could be the original coil from 1974. My dad said that is in fact a mixture screw. It sure as heck don't do much to the idle. I really want to go with a higher power coil. Whats a cheap coil thats more powerful then stock? I've been reading alot lately about a higher power Pertronix coil, would that work for my setup?
Jamie ... when I got my DuraSpark Setup ... from ronr11 ... he sent me the factory coil and it is running fine. I can't imagine a junkyard charging more than a couple of bucks for it ... you will need the special connector for it as well since it does not have threaded posts ... I would think an aftermarket Accel coil from Autozone would work fine as well and has threaded posts ... That is what I am using in my Grabber with the Pertronix setup ..
http://users3.ev1.net/~bmarr/duraspark_ignition_upgrade.htm JAMIE GO TO THIS SITE AND LOOK AT THE TFI COIL SETUP IT WORKS FOR ME AND IT WILL KNOCK YOU ON YOUR A--. BUZZAP
Ron, I actually have one those coils laying around that came off my dad's 95 GT. We were haveing some ignition problems a while back and I replaced the coil, but it turned out to not be the problem. I'll have to give it a try!
Jamie, All of the information I have been giving you pertains to the 302. I thought you were turning the idle screw, since there are 2 air/fuel mixture screws on the 2 and 4-barrel carbs that most V-8s have. If you don't have the Duraspark coil, then you certainly don't want to gap the plugs at 050. Again, make sure that the vaccum advance is functioning properly. Set the timing first. Once you are certain that the timing is set correctly, adjust the air/fuel mixture for the most vacuum and smoothest idle (no misfiring). Then, set the idle speed to around 750RPM in Park or Neutral. It should run nicely.
Ahh, that would explain why I felt a decrease in power when I put the new .50 gapped plugs in. Sorry about the engine type confusion. I should have specified my motor. I'm actually going to print out this thread and go though everything you guys have said one by one and see where that gets me. Now if this rain would stop. Every time it stops, I go out side and it starts raining again just enough to get everything wet. May have to wait till tomarrow to mess with it more. Sure wish I had a garage.
That's a good article on the duraspark swap. I am thinking of pulling all the MSD stuff of my 351w and going back to duraspark so I can sell the MSD stuff I don't really need. Plus if I have ignition problems I don't want to wait on a part from MSD or the speed shop. Keep in ming that to get to the weights on a duraspark you do not need to remove the gear on the dist. like in the article. There is an internal c-clip you can take off from the top inside of the shaft and remove the reluctor. Alot easier than pulling the whole shaft out. Clint
