It's always electrical. :)
Last Monday I was proud of the way my TR3 was running and making plans for a
major trip or two this summer, starting with a run down to Branson, Missouri
for TRA next week. As I was leaving the gas station that evening, it died
(on the busiest street in town, but hey, it's a small town.) Nothing would
bring it back to life.
Tuesday was spent trying to diagnosis the problem and it came down to a dead
ignition control box. (The old adage about electronic boxes not giving
warning before failure was only partially true. I got it started twice and
made it a total of about six blocks before it died completely.)
For a number of unrelated reasons I had been looking at the dizzy and
wondering about advance curves. The death of the Crane box gave perfect a
rationalization for a new Mallory distributor. (The control box is built
into that unit and the curve is user adjustable.)
Wednesday I ordered the parts, they arrived Friday afternoon, and here,
Sunday night, I have a completely transformed car. It starts easier, the
top end arrives quicker, it's markedly more responsive, less noisy and it
just plain runs better. The really funny part is that several of the
niggles I had with the cars performance (flat spots under certain load
conditions, an annoying spit back on shut down, etc.) seem to have gone away
as well. I am thrilled. And to think, we haven't even begun to play with
the curve. :)
Moral of the story is that if you are looking for performance, the ignition
might be a good place to start.
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