Donairs

I have a 1971 240z, I think the fuel mixture is leaning out. During checking for vacuum leaks, I sprayed carb cleaner between the intake manifold and the head and the RPM shot up. I assumed the gasket was leaky and naturally replaced it, but even with a brand new one it's still doing the same thing. Mixture nuts are turned all the way up and float levels checked, fuel lines and filters double checked, all is well. It's truly a mystery. The leaner I set it, the easier it starts up, but it also backfires much more and consequently dies right after. The richer I set it the less it backfires, but the idle feels far more rough and much lower. Raising the rear suction piston does nothing, raising the front one kills the engine right away. Also, in order to keep the car idling I have to advance the timing all the way (distributor literally cannot be turned any further.) I know this can be a reason for the backfire but I can't get it to idle any other way. Help is greatly appreciated!

That's essentially what I do when I attempted to bypass the resistor, it never yields me any results leaving me with very low voltage at the coil.

Thanks for the replies, I just replaced the pertronix unit and attempted running it both with and without the ballast resistor, still nothing. I would try wiring the coil and ignitor straight to the battery but I'm not sure how to do it besides sticking a piece of speaker wire to the positive battery terminal, and sticking the other side to the positive coil terminal. Will this work? Also, something interesting I've discovered is that when the coil first receives power (as in the key is switched from the off position to on), a single burst of spark is emitted from the coil wire. Same thing happens when the key is switched from on to off. This is the only possible way I get any spark from the coil at the moment. Also, Pete, wouldn't bypassing the ballast resistor solve an ignition switch problem as the switch is no longer diverting power to the resistor, but instead is now directly powering the coil with a full 12v?

Ignitor as in the Pertronix unit? What could have caused that?

Battery terminals are reading 12v. The way I've come to interpret it is the ballast resistor drops the voltage at the coil down to 9v when the key is in the 'on' position, and when the key is turned to the 'start' position the resistor is bypassed and 12v are sent straight to the coil. However, this isn't the case for me. Instead of the voltage being raised, it instead drops. Come to think of it, even with the resistor bypassed, I still only read 9v at the coil.

Hello all, After finishing my valvework on my 1971 240z, I went to start it up only to find that the coil was not sparking. Although the coil was recieving a full 9v when the key was turned to the 'on' position, when it was turned to the 'start' position, the voltage would fluctuate between 6 and 7 volts. After replacing the coil to no avail, I attempted bypassing the ballast resistor (I have been told it is not needed with an electronic ignition setup) and still do not see any improvement. At this point I have hit a brick wall, I've tried everything I've read online yet I still fail to recieve a full 12v while starting. What else could be the culprit besides a coil? I'm no mechanic, the only experience I have with cars is the work I have done to my own datsun. For reference, my wiring is set up exactly as the attatched photo shows. Any an all help would be greately appreciated, Don.

People have tried convincing me I drive a Pinto..