Remove your distributor cover, and disconnect the vacuum advance hose and either with a bulb or a clean hose, suck on the hose to create vacuum and then release. Repeat several times emulating an engine accelerating and decelerating. The points plate should rotate and return FREELY. If it does not, that could be part of the problem.

Just a thought.

E

thanks. ill try that but it has electronic ignition. would it still have a points plate?

Electronic ignitions usually replace the breaker against an electronic trigger setup but you still have the advance weights and vacuum mechanism.

Which electronic ignition is installed in your car?

thanks. ill try that but it has electronic ignition. would it still have a points plate?

The vacuum advance plate is BELOW the points plate. It's a small piece of plastic that houses several ball-bearings that the points plate (or in your case, the breaker/sensor plate) rides on. If those small ball-bearings fall out of their sockets, the plate will not rotate forwards or back smoothly. Usually (experience here) the plate will "stutter" or jump ahead and NOT return until the vibration stutters it back.

If your timing got adjusted with the plate out of position, when the plate returned to position it would make it hard to start, and often it will stall under any kind of load (when you accelerate in gear) while still idling in neutral.

FWIW

E

i dont know whats installed because it looks stock though i know its not and i bought the car with it in there so idk

the car runs really great and will drive for a little bit but its inconsistent. someone mentioned that, because it backfired when i tried to throttle through it, its starved for fuel and under load its having trouble. would this be relevant to the damper oil in the carbs?

i still have no clue what thats for

never worked with side draft carbs before

heres some pics of the coil, motor, distributor, the two stray wires, and some wiring under the pass. side of the dash

Edited April 7, 201015 yr by 1973240

I would say this is a fuel delivery problem, the pump or the carbs, either way it sounds like you are not getting enough fuel into the engine. If it runs, it runs, and the only thing preventing it accelerating is the lack of extra fuel to the engine. Most engines will idle all day with a spoonful of petrol but will need more to run properly. BTW, are you sure you have electronic ignition?

Looks like he has a Pertronix Ignitor I distributor conversion, you can see the red and black silicone wires coming from the distributor.

About that carb oil.

Unscrew the black knob on the top of each carb, inside will be a dip stick with 2 engraved lines, upper and lower. Where is the level, if any, of oil on the dip stick? If no oil or low it only takes about 2cc to fill. Straight 20wt is recomended but some use ATF, 3-in-1, motorcycle fork oil, etc... Don't worry to much about overfilling as the extra will be ran through the carb. An eye-dropper or straw & finger can be used to remove excess or changing out. The oil dampens the opening and closing of the suction piston, different weights of oil, amount of oil and temp will have an effect with throttle response.

Bonzi Lon

pretty sure. theres no point system and it looks just like electronic ignition. also tested the mechanical fuel pump and its good. ill check the oil level in the dampers.

ok at this point its pretty much a mphh threshold but i think its about 10-15 cause i thought my speedo didnt work but i coasted down a hill in nutruel and it got up to 35 so anyway. first gear i can rev while driving up to the mph limit. and second i can cruise at driveway speeds but theres still a threshold i can cross...

You can rev the engine until the mph limit in first gear, so i would assume that the ignition and advance plate/vacuum is ok. Sounds like fuel starvation to me.

What happens when you rev the engine without being in a gear, can you rev it up to 3000-4000 RPM or does it die then too?

Easiest possible solution on fuel starvation.

Change your fuel filter (dirt cheap)...if it runs after that, you likely have a gunked up fuel tank that needs to be cleaned out...