Misfire

[ragtop]

Hi, I have a Toledo 1300 fitted with Lumenition & twin carbs, When the car is started from cold it runs very good, but as soon as the engine is at running Temperature it lacks power & missfires. Pulling out the choke does not improve it, i have replaced the coil but still the same.
Any suggestions please

[GTS290N]

faulty lumenition unit.

[RobSun]

I had exactly the same problem with my 1300 Dolly. Was repeatedly told that the Lumenition unit was bullet proof and it works 100% or not at all. So everything done that it possibly could be but with no success. Eventually found that the unit was running red hot so took it out and fitted point and condenser. Problem fixed after 2 years of trying. Poor quality condensers have made me put it back on electronic ignition, a Sparkrite kit, earlier this year and that is working fine.

[soe8m]

Running red hot is caused by a ballasted coil fitted without resistor. Read the fitting manual and use the correct parts.

Jeroen

[RobSun]

In this case Jeroen there was a ballasted coil and separate ballast fitted to a supply coming from the fuse box, not the harness as this feed was showing for some reason that there was no ballast resistance in it. The fitting instructions were followed to the letter and checked out more than once by a few people. We had also tried several coils, all ballasted, including a Lumenition's one with their own ballast resistor and nothing sorted the issue. I came on the site asking for advise suspecting coils were the problem and if you remember I didn't get much help but posts telling me I was an idiot. However when the the Luminition ignition unit was removed the problem went away. I kept using the coil and ballast from them with points and condenser until a few weeks ago when I returned to an electronic ignition because of the poor quality condensers now available failing so often.

Everything was changed several times to stop the problem, extra earths to the engine, several sets of leads, plugs, dizzy caps, coils, ballast resistors even fuel pump, and red jetted the carb in desperation and nothing worked until the unit was binned. After scrapping the unit I went on line and found I was not the only one that had had this problem and it was being put down to the fixing screws being to long and not clamping down the unit onto the distributer plate causing earthing and tracking under it. When mine came off the base plate was black from earthing across so this was likely the problem and shorter screws may well have cured it. But the unit was checked and screwed down tight more than once so this was not suspected. The unit now fitted uses a heat sink paste so not having anything like that may also have been an issue.

[soe8m]

Too bad such a small problem caused that much trouble. Any reaction about the fitting hardware from Lumenition?

Jeroen

[RobSun]

In a word no.