Electronic Ignition.. Yes or No!

[zefarelly]

I can't remember the last time I saw an LC with points truth be told

and therein lay the crux of the problem, no one gives a ****!

[LC driver]

Originally Posted by zefarelly

I can't remember the last time I saw an LC with points truth be told

and therein lay the crux of the problem, no one gives a ****!

The only way to stop all the **** is going back to full FIA regulations and proper scruteneers. But there are not so many organisations who will do that.......even the FIA stopped the european championship, so who will race under full FIA regulations.

[Peter Mallett]

In fairness LC Driver did say "a lot of cars" which infers other than LC's.

It's not important really. If the problem is development you'll never stop it so why get all het up about it? Stop the use of modern blocks (you can't stop the use of stronger internals), stop roller rockers, rose joints etc. but for gawds sake EI is just not that important. It is as far as reliability is concerned (good) but performance wise, its never going to make enough difference.

[delta]

Errr me again wots an LC.

[rogerwills]

Originally Posted by zefarelly

I can't remember the last time I saw an LC with points truth be told

and therein lay the crux of the problem, no one gives a ****!

Come and take a look at mine, anytime!

[zefarelly]

no need Roger, I heard the misfire

[LC driver]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

In fairness LC Driver did say "a lot of cars" which infers other than LC's.

It's not important really. If the problem is development you'll never stop it so why get all het up about it? Stop the use of modern blocks (you can't stop the use of stronger internals), stop roller rockers, rose joints etc. but for gawds sake EI is just not that important. It is as far as reliability is concerned (good) but performance wise, its never going to make enough difference.

You are complete right Peter it's better to tell everyone to use the same EI so you can controle things. It lower the costs and is much more reliable. So make rules about things you are allowed to use as long as it not gives more performance. So stop hunting on EI, rev limiters or shift lights and start looking for illegal shocks and engines far to big from homologation.

[LC driver]

Originally Posted by rogerwills

Come and take a look at mine, anytime!

So that makes tree legal Cortina's

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by delta

Errr me again wots an LC.

A LC is a lotus Cortina.

[delta]

Thanks Peter i did work it out after reading Rogers post. Thinking back when i was a Peter Baldwins rolling road Andy Wolfe was there with his LC and having probs with the dizzy. They gave up and went to Nurburgring with a new dizzy and all was well in the race.Think the outcome was the original had a lot of movement in the rotor and started trying to fire on the next cylinder.

[zefarelly]

Q: If one were to allow electronic triggering devices only, we'd all go yahoo as points 'won't go over 8k' , 'aren't reliable' due to poor quality manufacture etc . . .

BUT . . . the problem seems to be as much very poor quality rotor arms and lately I've seen some paper thin 'lucus' caps as well . . . . you can wiggle them and it probably makes 2-3 degrees timing difference. one broke a hole through when we fitted it it was so thin.

123 is the way to go . . . . . maybe

[Peter Mallett]

EI is not the total solution as you point out. My woes from Spa last year that carried on into this season (Snet/Dony) were related to the dizzy. I'd been running the FoMoCo Capri 3l dizzy for years and had no real problems although everyone recommended a Bosch but they (like good points) are hens teeth. Anyway I thought it was the lumenition so bought a whole new kit. It was fitted over the winter but with limited testing (a very wet Snetterton) I never hit any revs to see if the problem had gone. It hadn't as is well documented in these pages.

Eventually we traced the fault on a rolling road to the Piper Dizzy I'd bought from Ebay! It was allowing oil up the spline and into the cap thereby cutting the spark. As you know when I tried it at Combe it went well.

The point is (no pun intended) that it wouldn't have made any difference running points or EI because that fault would still exist.

Nothing is perfect just some things are better solutions.

[zefarelly]

diesel Peter . . . the engine was designed to run on it !

[lml698]

The problem with ignition for most Historic and classic cars is i suspect the utterly C**P nature f modern replacement rotor arms. Any heat or long race and they seem to fail. If only someone could produce some decent ones made in a vacuum etc.

[zefarelly]

or machined from billet unobtanium with a solid gold conductor

[zefarelly]

I dyno tested 3 engines last week, 2 on points and one on electronic, the electronic one did make a bit more power, but was a higher capacity and in a lesser state of tune . . .so the Jury is still out on advantage

However . . . . one of the points engine broke a rotor arm at 7500rpm fortunately we stopped it almost instantly and no damage was done.

we continued the test with a new old stock Lucas one and I've since sourced good quality replacements from the US ( 10 are on their way)

when I did a post mortem on my engine after Spa I found the rotor arm was also broken inside so it had moved and changed the static timing to 17 degrees BTDC!!! ( as well as a blown head gasket )

[terence]

Sounds like a close shave Zef,bit different to leaving you parked at Pouhon at 10.15 at night though.

[GORDON STREETER]

How can the rotor arm alter the timing ?

[terence]

By turning on the shaft.

[zefarelly]

the locating peg inside the cap broke clean off on the dyno engine, it went bang (cue flames from exhaust and bowel movement) and stopped dead

on my car when I took it off doing the post mortem it looked a bit munched . . .like a farmer had a go at fitting it and damged it . . .therefore it could have moved post installation . . . .

on a 1,2,3 distributor they advise turning the dissy clockwise before setting the timing to take up any 'slack'

look at a recycled chow mein 'made in English' Lucas rotor arm and they move about 5+ degrees either way due to slack tolerances . . . . . therefore it could move post static set up, or post dyno once someones touched it to check the points, likewise the same could apply to sparkless.

[Al Weyman]

By turning on the shaft.

I thought that would have retarded the timing?

[GORDON STREETER]

I'm sorry the rotor arm has nothing to do with the timing ! that is controlled by the points or electric eye.
All it does is distribute the spark to the pick ups in the cap !

[jerryk]

Gordon is quite correct in what he says . The only thing a broken rotorarm could do is send the spark to the wrong plug . Timing is controlled by the main shaft, counter weights and cam of the distributor.

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by jerryk

Timing is controlled by the main shaft, counter weights and cam of the distributor.

I thought it was controlled by the ecu behind the dash on the winning FIA cars

[esper]

Originally Posted by GORDON STREETER

I thought it was controlled by the ecu behind the dash on the winning FIA cars

controlled by the electric eye on the flywheel.........