Hi Greg
That is very interesting - I’m going to sort out some more fresh fuel tomorrow, so I’ll try to find some ‘standard’ unleaded rather than super; it will be interesting to see if it makes any difference.
Regards
Matt
Hello Mike - hope all is good with you and the Elites are running better than my Plus 2!
Regards
Matt
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Hi dreanog
I’ve not had the car running for long enough to have a chance to check the coil and coil voltage. But it’s a good steer as 90% of carburettor faults are electrical and vice versa. I’ll try to check when I run the sniff test tomorrow or Wednesday
Matt
Hi Matt,
No, I mentioned I had really bad problems with sooting up plugs caused by moving to super unleaded. Adjusting the carbs fixed it.
Ah ok I’m getting new fuel tomorrow so I’ll try normal rather than super……
Yes - even with coolant you risk corrosion happening if you don’t drain it during long periods of storage. I’d drain the coolant if you plan on storing the vehicle more than a year. That includes removing the plug on the block. My experience is that if coolant circulation doesn’t occur you can get localised pockets of corrosion happening. You see examples of this in areas where coolant circulation doesn’t occur such as coolant trapped under hoses where they connect to outlets etc.
As to draenog’s problem Lotus54 raised a very good point. If the wiring has been changed was the new harness checked to see if it incorporated a resistance wire? If not and the original one did and you are using a coil intended for use with a ballast resistor the coil will overheat.
Quick update - I’ve serviced the carbs but have not found any issues - a little bit of dirt in the carbs, no blocked jets. I have fitted new float valves and reset the float heights again. otherwise all OK.
I’ve done a burn test on the fuel in the car, some new Shell 99 octane and sone 95 octane - simply by setting fire to a couple of cc’s in a bowl. All three burned, all were pretty sooty and all three were pretty much the same.
So I’ve also drained the fuel tank and will add a couple of gallons of new E5 95 octane fuel. I’m kind of coming round to it being the fuel as its the same amount of sooting up across all four cylinders. I bought the fuel which was in the car in about September after ESSO started to add ethanol to its Super Unleaded so I’m wondering if this is the issue. Hopefully I’ll fire he up again on Monday and will report back. If that doesn’t work then I’ll change the HT leads and coils, bearing in mind the 90/10% relationship of carb vs ignition issues…
I’ve a 71 Plus 2 that I’ve just restored and its running well. However I also have a 67 Sunbeam Alpine collecting soot on the plug near the firewall. The plug became so contaminated there was no gap it was closed completely.
It just looked like muck, at the end of the plug. It may be useful to post a photo of the plug for the group.
My car misfired very badly and I limped home on 3 remaining good cylinders, it was a rough ride. My sources tell me I’ve a head issue, worn valve guides, or control rings. (I will be pulling the head in the spring.)I would be interested to see what your plugs look like to get smarter your plus 2 issue as well. Keep us posted on the troubleshooting
MJBeanie - Thanks for the input. My plugs are sooting up, all four the same. The soot is black, loose and soft and can be wiped off with a rag or soft wire brush or cleaned off with a spot of brake cleaner. It is not closing the gap per see, but obviously causing the plugs to short out. The engine won’t run for more than a few minutes. Your issue is likely to be a mechanical problem with your no 4 cylinder as you’ve surmised.
Matt
So there is some light at the end of the tunnel…I drained off the old fuel and added a couple of gallons of new stuff and there was no change. So I’m moving to the ignition system and put a new coil on - no change. I was about to fit new HT leads when I thought about Rohan’s suggestion of hotter plugs. I’d been running on NGK BP6ES (and B6ES and BPR6ES) all with the same results. So I bought some B5ES (they were all the shop had) the car started well and I managed to drive the car a mile down the road and even got back OK! It’s still a bit sensitive to throttle position but does pull decent revs and hasn’t yet gone down to three or two cylinders. So a bit more faffing about is needed but it is tending yo look like plugs. I’ll update as and when I have any more breakthroughs but I an hoping that the issue is thais simple…
Possibly still a overly rich mixture problem that the hotter pugs are helping compensate for
cheers
Rohan
Here in the States, it seems NGK has discontinued the non-resistor plugs. So may want to stock up if you need those.
Yes, overly rich mixture and poor spark both can require hotter plugs not to foul. I actually had best results with a multifire ignition and very hot coil at about .060” sparking plug gap. But the cap only last a very short time (lesson learned). Sure ran well though. I finally found about .035” would work and help a poor progression circuit. This was on a 74 Lotus Elite with Webers rather than the DellOrotos.
I would suggest taking a good look at your e-tubes and see what they are. They make a huge difference in ‘regular road’ driving- at least in my experience. (I think you said it used to be good, but good to know anyway).
Just thoughts off the top of myhead.
Mark
Neat thing
With some heat, you can unscrew the ceramic top of a plug and remove the resistor.
Then again, there are some other plugs which may outperform NGK.
Maybe NGK is resting on their laurels?
I think you are just seeing product rationalisation by accountants. The non emission plugs such as the BPxES range are having less and less demand so becoming more of a speciality item.
Quick update - I’ve done about 40 miles now with the B5ES plugs in and have not had to clean them once. The car starts and runs well, and other a definite ‘fluffy’ period as it transitions off the pilot jets and onto the main jets its running well. And all the electrics seem to be behaving which was the object of the exercise in the first place!
I’m going to get my carb man to take a look at it once I’ve got a few more miles on it but touch wood its looking good.
I am suspicious of shell optimax in classic cars.
I’ve had a similar problem, won’t rev under load. Bit of a weird coincidence…
Not a good coincidence.
Some engines are very plug sensitive. Use whatever it prefers.
Projector nose plugs can improve performance. The spark is closer to the centre of the chamber, almost like advancing the timing…
I will try the b5es then.
There are triple electrode ngk for electronic ignition. Bp6et. That’s my next try.
Any one else had issues with SHELL v-power?
Another update - the car had a pronounced flat spot as it transitioned from idle to main jets - it had to be ‘nursed’ on the throttle otherwise it would bog down, but would run ok once it had transitioned. I’d not explained this to my carb guy who has set the carbs up in the workshop so the tick over and balance were spot on, and he was mortified when I drove off with the obvious problem! We had a chat on the phone the day after and decided it must be down to the float height. Now I had reset the float heights when I rebuilt the carb, but had made the mistake (i.e I had not read the manual properly) of setting the height with the float valve fully closed. The float needle is sprung and there is a considerable amount of extra movement of the sprung part once the valve itself has closed. So my setting on the float valve meant the fuel level in the float chamber was far too low. When I re-read the manual and followed my carb guy’s advice the transition issue was fixed. So another lesson learnt - including RTFM!
The car is now running nicely and I can happily drive it somewhere, stop and have a good degree of confidence that it will restart!