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Can't go uphill

B

Bill Harben

Hi all,

Recently, my SIV Alpine has given me trouble going up hill in a low gear. It starts missing. It runs great at higher RPM's and accelerates normally on the flat. But take on a hill and forget it...it just chugs until I downshift into a much lower gear, say from 4th to 2nd.

I have checked out the new Autolite plugs and they look unused. I have a crane electronic ignition. I have re-built the carbs and tuned them up.

Any other thoughts as to what might cause this missing under high demand, low RPM situations?

:confused:
Thanks,

Bill Harben
Auburn CA
 

husky drvr

Platinum Level Sponsor
I have re-built the carbs and tuned them up.

Bill,

If you have carbs then the original Solex must not be installed. That does away with my first thought.

This is a wild guess without more info.

From your description, it sounds like an ignition misfire under load. The most spark energy is required when cylinder pressure is highest - think driving at about the engine's torque peak and WOT ( 3500 rpm for an original SIV ). An ignition spark will take the path of least resistance to ground and this is not always through the spark plug. The spark might arc out of a bad plug wire to ground, follow a crack or carbon track in the distributor cap and then arc across another plug not on its firing cycle, or possibly just not have enough energy to arc across the plug gap.

The things to check, if the plugs are good, would be the condition of the distributor cap, rotor button, plug wires, and ensure that the plug gaps are not too wide ( OE setting is 0.025 inch ). You say that you have an electronic ignition, does that mean that you have changed your SIV to negative ground? If so and if you are still using the OE coil, did you change the low tension coil leads to accommodate the grounding change? Have you checked the electrical connections and grounds for the ignition system? At that point if the problem is still not found you might consider that the coil itself is losing its ability to produce the required spark energy.

One last thought is that you may be experiencing severe detonation due to over advanced ignition and/or too low octane fuel. The Rootes specification for these engines is 100 octane fuel - I know, unobtainable for most people these days - 87 octane is not recommended.
 
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