Lotus Club Queensland
Dedicated to the promotion and enhancement of the Lotus experience
Login
Register
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Membership
    • Member Login
  • Events
    • Calendar
  • Motorsport
    • Lakeside DTC Timed Laps
    • LAKESIDE DTC RESULTS
  • Magazine
  • For Sale
    • Merchandise
    • Classifieds
  • Posts
  • Galleries
  • Directory
    • Suppliers & Parts
    • Advertisers
  • Archives
distributors

Early Lucas Ignition Systems Plus Tune

by Greg Bray

First check cylinder compressions, then the valve clearances, they obviously need to be good and correct for good engine performance. Tight tappets particularly inlets will knock off performance. Some makes of engines are particularly prone. If compressions are wrong and uneven, a leak-down tester should be used to determine whether its valves, rings or gaskets.

Your twin choke carburettors should be the last thing you tune and adjust not the first. They will be easy to balance and tune when everything else is right.

There are basically three different ignition coils, Standard, Ballasted and Electronic. All these types will have different numbers of internal windings. The Standard type is used with points distributor resistance between plus and minus terminals, approximately 3.8. Some coils are not marked as to use. The Ballast coil is only to be used with resistor inline, between ignition switch and coil. It is designed to improve starting, it gets a 12v boost direct from a terminal on the pre-engage starter. Then goes back to 9v through the ballast system. Resistance between plus and minus is approximately 2.3.

My personal experience with my Crypton Tuner machine is that it often shows faulty and incorrect coils. You would not believe how many times I’ve done tunes and the tuner shows incorrect coils have been fitted. Example Ballast coils fitted to Standard systems burning out points. Or Standard coils on Electronic systems with tiny sparks causing difficulty in starting etc.

Distributor advance must be what manufacturers quoted. Check with timing light that it will make full advancement. Cars can have the wrong distributor, so you should check in manufacturers manual that you are getting the correct advancement, at the progressing r.p.m’s up to full advancement. When distributor will not reach correct full advancement it is usually the bob weight springs that are the problem. They have either been stretched or are the wrong type. None of the late Lucas points distributor parts rotor, caps etc are interchangeable with early parts, they are all different.

Distributor vacuum advance units are an economy device, not a performance unit.
Which is why they are not on a lot of early performance cars. So welding up the bob weights together, so there is no mechanical advance will not work. Even if you have a vacuum advance unit.

A word about the Dwell angle. The amount of time the points are closed and the low tension windings are earthing through the points and re-energizing the coil which is ready for the next break in the circuit, points open. So having too larger a points gag reduces Dwell angel and the coil has not got enough time to energize causing a high speed misfire.

Talking about engines that wont rev, early on you should check that when you press the throttle pedal to the floor the carbs have made full throttle. You’ll be surprised how many times they wont.

Garage Find The Plus 2 that was meant to be

Related Posts

duratec-banner

Articles, Homepage, Technical

Duratec Elise – better late than never

plus2-banner

Articles, Gallery 2022, Homepage, Technical

Unique +2 Road Trip to Brisbane

helmet-banner

Articles, Homepage, Racing

$10 HEAD/$10 HELMET

Random images

IMG_6922 05 Hosts_Tim_and_Carol_Moore 113_1371_IMG IMG_8789 IMG_6505 20131005_181346 IMG_3896 121_2169_IMG IMG_4444 IMG_2908 IMG_6746 IMG_6740 image_266 image_164 image_113 Aug_F02_2388a IMG_7755 IMG_5301 The flying Scotsmen 20210911-Leyburn-B-749-By-Trapnell-Creations Geoff-Nobles-Elise-still-king-of-the-mountain-by-Emma-Morley The-Surf-Club-Mooloolaba-function-room-was-a-perfect-venue-R-Messenger IMG_1962 Bathurst Pit Bay A comfort stop along the way elans-mk2 _MG_9161 as Smart Object-1 IMG_3904 Jon dtc-19 The finished billy cart Russells-Lotus-Carlton-2 13-All-eyes-left 1-Maree-Jason-Garry-Stockyard-Hotel.jpg 10-Sunset-refreshments MG_5995 P1060095 IMG_7394 Jan-Welcome-to-Lakeside- main-1 main-0 2006_08_27_Gympie_Skid_Pan0116 2006_08_27_Gympie_Skid_Pan0092 P1060123 P1060098 Geoff_Maree_Cameron_Clive_Russell_Leigh Scottish_Elises_Tut_Towers_May_2002 MG_6936 IMGP2244 P1010073a IMG_9151 IMG_0321 IMG_0262 img_0940 IMG_3945 Greg_Maggie_Graham_John 5610_G P1050419 Ready_to_warm_up P1050418 IMG_5108 P8310159 P1020814 Everywhere_you_look_Lotus IMG_6364 IMG_8887 IMG_8100 IMG_5110 IMG_5112 nh01pb IMG_8006 winner-tony-galletly-eleven Baby-James Jen-relaxing-in-the-comfortable-habitat giles-elise Shine-for-the-show Another-Elan-back-in-service bush_fire_rewgrowth A bit of banter IMG_20210711_084910 20190427_110400 _MG_1811_gw Turn-1-Approach Zaid and Dick Newell Highway, Martin leading the-lovely-and-unique-2002-roundie Topless-Cats-1 20200815_075734 Highly tuned Mini gt falcon IMGP8599 Phil and Gail liam's-exige main-37 aston-martin IMAG6018 IMG_6185 Patricks-26R-Elan-1 main-66

Recent Articles

  • Morgan Park Sprints R4
  • Kev’s Big Day Out
  • Duratec Elise – better late than never
  • Gold Rush Hill Sprint – 2022
  • Marburg Pub Run – 4 Sept 2022
  • Unique +2 Road Trip to Brisbane
  • Leyburn 2022
  • August 2022 DTC

Latest Gallery Images

20220220_093834 20220220_093818 20220220_093827 20220220_093743 20220220_093812 20220220_093730

Search articles by category

Archived articles

Lotus Club Queensland
© Lotus Club Queensland   |   Site by Black Eye Studios