Could you go back to your case notes, or point at the textbooks it used?
I can't think of any reason why wasted spark should ever (have) require a reversed coil connection.
The Ford EDIS system I've referred to is much older than 8 years. Dates back to the last century. But wasted spark has been used long before that. And it's not much used today on car engines. It's beauty was it only required a crank signal. Full sequential requires a camshaft one too. As electronics have come down in price, most now use one coil per cylinder and a combined trigger from crank and cam.
The sparks are always of the same polarity. That's according to how they are wired up. The alternate spark only is a matter of time, not polarity.
I think its wuite ofetn used because... It's beauty was it only
..it avoids the cam trigger.. In teh end its a matter of cost and packaging. If you can do way with a cam sensor you save space and money. AND there is almost NO downside to firing the plug in the middle of the exhaust stroke on a 4 cylinder. I suspect it gets more complicated at 6 cylinders+ tho.
Only a bodger filed points. Replacement was the correct way.
Wear on the heel of the cam? All mechanical devices wear out. But using a simple transistor removed the high current that cause points erosion. Of course not long after electronic triggers became practical removing points once and for all - luckily.
You've still not addressed the impossibility of making a mechanical advance system that was in any way accurate - even when new, let alone in service.
How little you know.
All that says is the standard 1.4 had remarkably poor engine management. Peak torque is largely a function of the engine size, and can be achieved using carburettors. As can maximum BHP. Full engine management comes into its own for reliability, consistency and better efficiency, ie fuel consumption. I never understood why BL farted around with all their various poor injection systems when they could just have bought Bosch and be done with it.
Ford used EDIS on 4,6 and 8 cylinder engines. Maybe even more, for all I know. It might be a problem on an engine with an odd number of cylinders, though. ;-)
My SD1 was the first production car from BL with electronic fuel injection. And only the ECU was Lucas - everything else, injectors, AFM TPS, EAV sensors etc Bosch.
Hell I knew I shouldn't have pissed away 35k on a Lotus Exige a decade or so ago. 780kg, 177bhp, 226 bhp / tonne and it's getting 'blown away' by mildly tuned low grade repmobile from a decade earlier.
The torque gains were simply made with the original MEMS without modification to it.
The only problem found was with a sticky idle air control valve which made restarts at -10degC next to impossible. I pulled the coolant temperature sensor for the clever box to get the engine to start and had erratic running until the engine temperature was truly up at which time I replaced the connector and was able to continue driving on frozen roads. After cleaning the valve and resetting it and the throttle position sensor, it all ran fine. The 'air' through that valve is from the valve cover and although there are oil separaters, carbon is pulled through the IACV. Resetting the system is essential for the box to do all the clever bits and keep the engine running smoothly and powerfully throughout the range. Economy for this is based on how heavy is your right foot. Use it half way and less, which is still quick, and 50mpg+ is a certainty. The vehicle is not used sufficiently to make accurate mpg checks, but it wouldn't surprise me if I could get 60mpg from it by taking full advantage of the fuel control system by keeping rpm above 1750 and below 3000 except when accelerating or actually stopping.
Maybe because they didn't want to pay the licence fee for every single installation with the forcast production and that they wanted a system which could be used across the whole range of vehicles including Land Rover and Leyland light freight. Actually I thought they did use a Bosch system in Freight Rover, Range Rover and the Landy FC with the Buick V8. I remember the police Leyland vans were very fast, probably as quick as the pursuit cars that they could actually keep the wheels on the road. IIRC Merseyside and Cheshire police shared 6 RS200's and four of them were scrap within two weeks. It was ridiculous to expect the officers who had barely seen a race-track to control thos monsters on public roads.
It was a Lotus I chased who had passed me at somewher about 85-90mph and I pulled out at 60mph before flooring it. It was quite nice having that engine pull hard in third gear all the way to 100 at which point I was holding speed with the sports car. Apparently much had been going on at the time (lmid to late90s) to use the ram effect to pressurise the air intake and although I've not looked at it in detail it is possible it works correctly on this model once the air intake is correctly aligned.
It's only mildly touched, the fully pegged engines require the stiffer suspension of the 2000Y on models.
Nah, I got the ignition system working like on a racing engine. It is possible to make greater gains on the track or road than that expected by what's shown on the dyno. Most engines fail to reach their potential torque delivery on the road through poorly adopted spark systems.
Crap driving seat, needs new headlamps and the back is too cramped for a picnic. The car is not really suitable for driving in excess of
100mph for long periods AFAIK as there does seem to be an element of driver fatigue setting in at over 90mph which could be due to loose struts at the back (I might check it out someday). Rover did speed trials with the k16 engine in a new metro body and had the needle pinned at around 130mph for 24 hours IIRC but with four drivers. I suspect that a MKII coupe of the 200, a Tomcat was entered in Monte Carlo, but I'm not sure there was the recognition of the value of the K outside of Rover at that time so it more likely the Rover coupe would be fitted with a bigger Honda engine or older and bigger Rover engine.
In its rough and ready condition, no, but with careful attention to detail it was possible to get 2nd gear to pass 60mph on the regular components. Doing a 0-60 was incredibly difficult because of the fine control needed to get the appropriate slip for maximum take-off speed and tyres must be prepared for this. I wasn't going to that trouble for public road use and it only hs a diddy clutch plate, a hot restart, which is what we want could easily fracture such a small item. And so I used simple 3rd gear acceleration as the basis of my testing to get the fuelling and ignition timing spot-on. Once it dipped below 8 seconds there was a firmness of connection between the pedal and engine so that confidence was present at all times during overtakes.
No chance, the NSL section of road I used barely had enough lenght as it was and the test required starting in a bend so I didn't end up flying down a 30mph street. Coming back was more risky as it meant I was exceeding the limit at the approack to a junction with the bend ahead. There was a few times I had to drop the stopwatch as someone emerged ,despite adequate sightlines, and I needed to brake hard. Road testing is not stricly legal and I always feared getting nabbed, but Maestros didn't attract attention with a good centre box.
Did you run yours with 5W30 synthetic engine oil at standard temperature (sealing ALL the coolant leaks with 40% glycol), 75w gearbox oil, degum the rings, use straight plugs with cutback electrodes running undergapped, levelled the needle in the carb with the piston face and burred out the ports and manifolds? I may have missed something, oh yes the fuel, I used Total from a local garage and added some upper cylinder lubricant (1/2 what they said was enough). And I found a proper light oil for the piston damper in the carb. Used a colourtune, set the spark advance for maximim acceleration with the vacuum unit plugged, went back and set the jet accurately for maximum acceleration and finally went back on another day to fine tune the ignition. 20-80mph was my standard test and getting off the last second was only possible when running with upper cylinder lubricant, but I doubt this would be noticable with gummed rings and a weeping cooling system as was typical.
I managed to get 33 in first with the tappets rattling, 62 in second and somewhere between 85 and 89 in third. There was no point in pushing the engine further without stiffer valve springs and I didn't fancy the bother that may have led to.
That would explain the get-around and the necessity for resistive plugs. There were systems that were plasma burners and had to be regulated so the plug electrodes would last the race.
The spark problem seems to be upstream of the ECU, which is in the passenger compartment and seems to be functioning perfectly (according to the sparky the fact that it was generating an error code which has now been cleared is a good sign). The hot relays issue remains a small mystery. Possibly it was (is?) related to the bad connector, although I can't see how. All seems OK with the spark so far, and I'll check the relay temperatures again some time after the engine's been running for a while.
I will not start to feel confident that the problem is fixed until a few months pass without a failure, and even then I will not be certain. Unfortunately this engine doesn't have an external coil, it's inside the distributor, making removal/checking a bit of a PITA. I've done the resistance checks with the engine cold, FWIW.
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