Running bad

My 78 4 liter has run extremely well since I had a major in 2004. Recently,

while in for other work over the summer, I was told it should have a good old

fashion tune up. Was told the dwell is off between the 2 sides.

 

Fast forward to last weekend. Drove a 2hr trip. No sooner than 15mins, I felt

like I was running out of gas. Knew it was ignition. Started playing with the

throttle in different positions. Just press the gas a little and it's fine.

Press medium and hard, forget it. Go up a long incline on the highway..starts

slowing and slowing, downshift to forth and have to creep up at 50mph.

 

I really want to keep original but I am considering the alternative. BUT i can

not lose the snap crackle and pop of de-acceleration.

 

I'd like to do it myself (as I sometimes do) but just don't know yet.....My

jarama had been getting work done, my Urraco needs brake work. Too much lambo

stuff for me.

 

What do you think? What do you suggest? What should be replaced?

Bob (staatsof) and Tony on VLG had some good ideas with the Pertronix. Patrick system is also nice but I do not know about going that route.

 

Peter

Hi peter,

For what it's worth I had exactly the same symptoms.

Drove me nuts.

Changed ignition system..etc.etc.

Was fearing the worst.

 

Turned out to be an ozone build up in the distributor cap.

Pulled it off. Got a dremel tool and buffed out all the brown ozone build up.

 

Not missed a beat since.

 

 

Some have been converted to one distributor. Dean is correct, clean your rotor & cap. Moisture gets trapped in them. Easy to do & worth a try. I have used the Petronix in my Pantera and 64 GTO, works fine. A crank trigger setup would be the ultimate. Your coil could be breaking down. I just had one go out on the Countach. It even started leaking oil (Always mount oil filled coils upright).

Clean cap and rotor, change plugs if needed and check your coil and wires. If you really want to make a ignition change the crank driven ones seem like the best option, if your changing from original why half ass it?

You're positive it was ignition? If the car eventually stops and will then restart after a cool down then

it's fuel...... most likely fuel pumps.

Hi ken. My car would start then play up after 15 minutes or so and then run properly after cool down.

That's why I did my head in for weeks thinking it was fuel.

Ended up being the distributor cap.

Ken, I will certainly look into that too.

Ken, I will certainly look into that too.

 

Clean the cap may not be enough. When these cars get driven moisture build in the system if the weather is humid (like this summer). I guess even when they dont get driven and are not in an AC living room and in a dry climate of the world.

Rust finds its way in that distributor. The bearing get rusty and frozen. The cost of cap/rotor and labor on is just the same as putting a more reliable system.

The distributor is great for storing the car in a museum but when a car gets driven, my take is you have to take that distrib out of there.

 

The symptoms are the same as before I did my mod. Car was slowing down and then I had to find the sweet spot not to get the car "fuel starving issue". Was so bad that I thought I really had fueling issues. I happened very quickly.

 

As far as the crackling goes, I am sure any system can be setup for a bit of that. When I push mine, i do get it a bit but not like it was before (a bit much to my taste). The gain in the feel of pushing forward is more than offseting anything else.

I expected worse.

I did notice I seem to be missing most of my ignition wire looms and wires were sitting in between the head/cam cover in the ceenter of the motor. Wouldn't that be nice if all it was was heat.

 

very interesting pictures: thanks, Peter.

 

And glad to hear you located the problem.

 

ciao

I expected worse.

I did notice I seem to be missing most of my ignition wire looms and wires were sitting in between the head/cam cover in the ceenter of the motor. Wouldn't that be nice if all it was was heat.

 

Hey Peter the one thing I notice from your photos is that the rotor button on the on distributor cap appears to be stuck inside the cap in the photo below.

 

 

Then if you look at both rotors themselves it looks like the one has clear marks from the rotor button and the other one has very little markings.

 

 

Coincidentally the cap that appears to have the stuck carbon button coincides with the distributor/rotor that has little to no wear marks from the rotor button.

My thought is that possibly the rotor button became stuck in the cap, trust me it happened on my car and you lost a good deal of spark if not all spark for that side of the engine.

To be on the safe side remove the carbon button from the cap and clean the bore out, replace the carbon button and verify that it moves or slides in and out of the cap.

 

Best of luck Vic

 

PS: A picture is worth a thousand words, I hope I am correct and this solves your problem.

Oh yes by the way remove the plugs associated with the lower distributor cap and clean and or replace the plugs. Vic

That's interesating. Here another photo.

That's interesating. Here another photo.

 

It may be the photo, or you may have a bad spring under the carbon rotor button on the lower cap?

How much are the caps and rotors for the 4 liters? If they are relatively inexpensive buy a set and R & R them.

If it improves things great, if not oh well, it's not like spare Countach parts are going to go to waste.

Best of luck and keep us informed. Vic

 

Damn Vic... you got the eye! good man.

Looked this morning. Yes, the lower one is not sitting as high as the other. I played around and got it to sit higher. But pressing on it a couple of times and it dropped almost as lower as before I started. Is it safe to pull it and the spring out? I'd lke to clean in there.

However, Maserati Source has Marelli approved caps for $200 per pair. Listed for the early cars but does not say countach. I did not think there was a difference.

 

http://www.maseratisource.com/servlet/Detail?no=9

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/FERRARI-275-365-LA...beb&vxp=mtr

Looked this morning. Yes, the lower one is not sitting as high as the other. I played around and got it to sit higher. But pressing on it a couple of times and it dropped almost as lower as before I started. Is it safe to pull it and the spring out? I'd lke to clean in there.

However, Maserati Source has Marelli approved caps for $200 per pair. Listed for the early cars but does not say countach. I did not think there was a difference.

 

http://www.maseratisource.com/servlet/Detail?no=9

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/FERRARI-275-365-LA...beb&vxp=mtr

 

Yes it should pull out without a problem mine did, you may have to rotate it back and forth while pulling up on it. Good luck keep us posted Vic

 

 

So disappointing.

I clean all stuff discussed. Headed uphill out my driveway and the car ran with some noticable power uphill in 1, 2, 3rd gear. Zipped around town and it was nice. Headed uphill in 4th and felt the slight bogging down. Floored it and it felt flat, same in 5th before a quick turn to head back home......which ran pretty darn good.

Your thoughs?

 

Fuel or spark? I'm still leaning on spark.

 

We've had a good disscussion on VLG. The discussion was on the Pertronix conversion. The MR-1123 ingitor and the 40611 coil. HOWEVER, recently the MR-1125 became available for single distrib. The advantage is that it will/should all fit into one cap while the other is strictly being used for spark. Making timing less complicated I assume.

http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/Vintag...o/message/59870

 

 

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Flame-Thrower-High...e98&vxp=mtr

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ignitor-Marelli-12...68b&vxp=mtr

 

 

I'm still leaning on spark.

x2 Am I reading right that it was ok at WOT when cold, but crapped out WOT when it got hot?

I was not wide open when cold but spirited accelaration when cold.

My gut would say the coil is crapping out when it gets hot. If the coil is totally crapped out you can usually check it with an ohm meter, but I don't think that will work if it is not DOA.

Any luck on a fix yet Peter?

I have not had time to deal with it....yet.

 

I am waitng on a certain Pertronix kit that just became available last week. That will take care of the points. I will probably use their Coils as well. Even if it's not that, I want swap anyway.

 

Peter, sounds like a coil breaking down...