I started experiencing minutely short stutters from the engine a few weeks ago when running at high speed and accelerating hard. These were not significant jolts, but just momentary hesitations. The engine has done about 1500 miles since a total rebuild by Rob Beere and is otherwise running beautifully.
I discussed with Angus who suggested:
1. Coil
2. Distributor - go back to original points (Rob fitted a Petronix ignitor contactless breaker)
3. Fuel (I fitted a Filter King so wondered whether I had set the pressure limiter too low)
In that order, and do only ONE THING AT ONCE.
So yesterday I got round to swapping out the coil for the spare. Took the car for a run including a 10 mile burst on the motorway and a few charges up to 4000 rpm and the problem seems to be solved.
I called Rob this morning and got a bit more advice/info which was interesting:
1. He has lately come to the conclusion that Lucas sport coils are complete crap. That's interesting cos that's what he originally fitted to my engine.
2. The Intermotor sport coil is the only one he now uses. That's also interesting as that was the spare that he supplied me with a few months ago, and that I swapped in yesterday.
3. the Ignitor generally either works or doesn't
4. Fuel starvation at high load is usually evidenced by the engine being unable to deliver any more shove, rather than stuttering.
5. If you disconnect the outlet pipe from the Filter King and run it into a jug, you should get 1 pint in about 20 secs, or 30 secs at worst, to be sure it will keep a normal (untuned) engine supplied at full power, and the Filter King pressure should be set to between 2 and 4 psi.
I will do those checks on the fuel line when I get a moment, but meanwhile I'm hoping that it's the coil that was faulty.
Hope this might be helpful to others.
Oh - Angus, your consultancy fee invoice doesn't seem to have arrived yet...
