I didn't think anyone ever owned up to having a Princess :-)
Those days haven't gone, though - just don't buy a modern vehicle. There's still plenty of old stuff around that's been well looked after and can continue to last if owners keep up with maintenance (hmm, must get a new exhaust on the truck...)
cheers
Jules
Just drawing things out. On an eight cylinder, the cap contacts are spaced
45 degrees apart. But of course crank degrees that ignition advance is given as are half of this. So wouldn't you need approaching 90 degrees of advance before cross firing became likely - assuming the spark takes the course of least resistance? I'm thinking the most I might need is aboutOr am I not getting my head around this properly again?
Jules gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:
A mate of mine sold his recently.
To buy an Ambassador.
No, seriously.
Well the cap contacts are 90 crank degrees apart but they have a none zero width so it's less than that from the leading edge of one to the trailing edge of the next plus deduct the width of the rotor arm contact as well as how far a spark can jump which is several mm and there's suddenly not so much leeway.
Can't say I've ever measured it out on a V8 but I know there have been V12 caps for Jag engines and the like so I'm sure you'll be fine. I think the other main problem with points systems on V8s and V12s was the lack of dwell time when the points were closed to build up current in the coil.
Like my old Mk1 Astra GTE which had a basic Bosch L fuel system, leccy ignition and bugger all else. Decent fuel economy, no expensive bits to replace and nothing ever went wrong. However even carbs with their wear and servicing issues had their good points. You could rarely beat the fuel economy from a well set up SU or similar vacuum carb. It's also an absolute fact that the optimum mixture for cruise fuel economy is not the 14.7 stoichiometric mixture that lambda systems mandate. You could get carbs to run on 15 or 16 to 1 or even leaner as indeed you could on pre-cat FI systems.
On my old Fiesta XR2i I leaned off the mixture by adjusting the fuel pressure regulator and got over 50 mpg during the fuel crisis in 2000 or whenever it was. Normal driving was only mid 30s.
Oh, I had several - and the later Ambassadors - as company cars. They were damn good tow-cars - very stable, with very little rear overhang. The offical Unipart towbar was built like your proverbial brick s**t-house - I'm sure you could have picked the car up with it!
In those days, they used to fit 9v coils - with a ballast resistor which was by-passed during starting, making it easier to start with full [1] battery voltage available.
Had problems with mine when a garage which had done some work on it connected the ignition system back up without the ballast resistor. It misfired like hell, and eventually left me stranded with a burnt-out coil. I'd managed to work out what had happened by the time the AA arrived, and they changed the coil - and the points and capacitor for good measure - and got me mobile again. I then had to argue the toss with the garage over the cost of the parts. Those were the days!
[1] Well, whatever the starter current dragged it down to
There, now you've done it. You set the grey cells going again and reminded me of an article in Reveille (if anyone else remembers that far back) about a guy who had designed a new fuel system. It consisted of a standard tank with a filler/breather pipe that went to very nearly the tank bottom. As fuel was used the air that was drawn in bubbled up through the petrol making the vapour at the top of the tank ideal for combustion. This vapour was then drawn through a pipe connected to the top of the tank directly into the engine. There was no carburettor, just a butterfly controlled by the accelerator. It was installed into (I think) a MK1 Cortina and the car was smoother and faster than a standard Cortina and used very much less fuel. I never heard of it again and decided that either someone realised that there might be a loud bang if it crashed (although I am sure it was not beyond the wit of man to solve that) or, more likely, the patent was bought by a carburettor manufacturer never again to see the light of day.
"Tinkerer" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:
Ah, bless... The mating call of the conspiracy theorist...
That's me. Cynical to the end.
"Tinkerer" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:
There's a point at which cynicism becomes denial of reality.
Why would you want to mix in air with the petrol in the tank when that's the job of the carb or injection?
Take a look at carburettor designs of 1900-1910 It's not new, nor does it provide a particularly appropriate mixture.
Like many of these inventions of the '60s and early '70s, it probably did "work" in the sense of being "smoother" or even "more powerful", but all at the cost of profligate fuel consumption.
It might well have helped a worn or badly adjusted carb. Like many of these things. Which were never *properly* tested.
I thought you had to be a politician for that ;o)
Actually, as I originally said, the story made great play of the fact that the vehicle used much less fuel than when it had a carb as well as the improved performance.
The mixture would be strongly affected by the temperature in the tank, and I suspect the depth of the petrol. I'll stick to my computer injection, even if I can't fix it myself.
Andy
Yes, but it didn't. They were something we like to call, "wrong".
Of course it did. They're hardly going to make up a story where it didn't work. The world is littered with such snake oil things. Which rely on testimonial type 'proof' - never scientific.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Andy Dingley saying something like:
Indeed, and there was a long road leading to decent systems.
It probably worked at a particular speed/load. I would think a flash arrester or two might be a Good Thing.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Jules saying something like:
I had a six-pot one - the HL, iirc. Lovely old bus but prone to wrecking a bearing if thrashed. Wasn't bothered, it cost 40 quid.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.