Technical 54 WCFB woes and my incompetence

i’ll check the article out and see if it helps me discover how to adjust these duels. I suppose I should just set the same .017 gap with the second set of points and then read the dwell and then adjust each one from there down 1000th, for increase, dwell or off 1000 for decreased dwell to come to a conclusion, but then again, there’s a lot of reading to do first

 

You're revving it by hand and looking at the "****erflies" to know that it loses power when the secondary system opens, correct?

How do you know when the secondary system opens when driving it? By the change of the ~suction sound of the carburetor?

 

This isn’t a Mallory, and if my view overhead of the setup, these duals will open and close at the same time, and I don’t understand the benefit of two sets of points except for the possibility of longevity by dividing the load.

man’s the setup as explained in the Mallory bit there is simple enough, this motor turns over at about 250 rpm. Which makes it feel weird, but dwell is a distance AND a time, so regardless of cranking speed the dwell readings will be the same when running.

 

You will notice a change in dwell through the RPM range, now it shouldn't be much.
We have to ***ume the distributor shaft play is within tolerance.
Most duel point distributors will have a few degrees of offset in the points.
If you set the gap the same on both sets then block one set and set the timing then block off the other set and check the timing, it will change a few degrees.
I wire the duel point distributor in my race car so I can shut off one set of points to retard the timing in high gear.

 

Excellent info thank you.

 

What was the outcome of your carburetor guy's visit? You haven't kept us in the loop.
Don't tell me he was a no-show for a second time.

 

Occasionally you say
“I should get larger jets”

the jets set air/fuel ratio
not
total fuel flow
a better pump would increase the fuel flow

 

Well, he said he never seen a pertronix unit fail in higher rpm’s like this. Made some primary and secondary throttle runs and said the rear jets might be a step or two lean, but the low end seems spot on. He went Back the back and listened while I throttled to the flat spot and said the sound out back in person shows ignition stumbling.
Then he worked the throttle for me, and being back at the tail pipes it sounded like a rev limiter combined with a Jake brake was happening to my ears, very easy to hear a crossfire like rumble when the engine flatlined in person rather than video.

Mai I poured in a set of points, and it raised the flatline rpm to about 3800 rpm’s in the primaries, but it falls on its face when the secondaries start opening still.

 

Runs up to 2800 on primary, 3800 on secondary, you say it can't be ignition. It sure can be, the air fuel ratio is like very different on the two and the ignition can't handle the leaner mixture. Get an Air fuel ratio gauge that works.
If not done yet, wire the ignition straight to a separate 12 volt battery, byp*** the whole car electrical system.

 

I have 5 psi running this carburetor. Do you not find that sufficient? I run the electric pump in conjunction with the manual.

 

yes I said it can’t be ignition as per pertronix website themselves as quoted by a moderator here m, they say the pertronix either work or don’t work. There’s no middle ground, that’s why I kept putting off replacing the pertronix, not to mention the 100 plus bucks for a new unit.

but the flatline is still there, and I’m still looking for ways to get rid of it.

 

No, the pump I was referring to is the engine

 

I thought Lean was Easier to light off and Rich was Harder.

my exhaust gas ****yzer need’s calibrated and I have no idea where to get it done up here in Washington. It is an awesome tool in getting a proper burn metered in.

 

Occasionally you say
“I should get larger jets”

the jets set air/fuel ratio
not
total fuel flow
a better pump would increase the fuel flow….
Sorry you were talking about fuel flow so I ***umed you meant fuel pump.

JoeH, you thought that running my 6v positive ground coil off a 12v positive ground source would remedy even more of this flatlining of the carb? Because all I see would be a coil getting hot from too much voltage. But I’m sure the spark would get stronger from the extra voltage,

replacing the original coil with a new one did not remedy anything.

 

Ok so this seems like a silly suggestion but when you put the new plug wires on, did you put them on going to the correct plugs? Maybe you’ve got two mixed up?

clearly jist throwing darts here but figured it was worth a look

 

Last thing about some air fuel mixtures being harder to ignite than others Several of you have mentioned it.
So I’ll remind you that this motor is a gigantic 7.5:1 compression ratio, the air fuel charge should be very easy to light off, the pressures in these chambers are nothing like a 11.0:1 ratio with a .500 lift cam where they literally need a far over stock ignition system to get a good efficient burn.

 

yessir Tim the wires are on correctly, there’s no misfiring going on in that regards. But a an easy thing to overlook a simple inverted pair of numbers.

I still haven’t brought the rear jets up to king carbs suggested size yet because I don’t have a pin gauge set to measure the spare jets I have that will fit this carb, the numbers of the jet sizes are unreadable, therefore a pin gauge is necessary.

 

Can a ruling be made on the 'remove the Pertronix and install points' strategy?

Why did dual points become the new strategy?

 

...if the carb is the oem and it was properly rebuilt then why would there be a need to start mucking about inside? Mopar's R&D budget in 1954 is still more that the combined resources of this 'help' board...
I have a little bit of exposure to these engines and I'll suggest, again, that going back to all oem status is the best baseline for evaluating throwing parts/'repairs' at it.
What ohm reading do you get from the plug wires? Yes, each one.

 

Yes.

Gary said he eliminated the Pertronix, and the engine still stumbled. So I asked if we can make a ruling on the 'remove the Pertronix' strategy.

I'm also wondering why the strategy then changed to dual points.

 

I’m thinking he said it stumbled but at a higher rpm than the pertronix.

Running on a single point.

 

The factory distributor is a duel piont.
Just a though, what is the condition of the fuel?

 

I looked at some of the original thread and some of this thread. This is an "all original" (with a Pertronix ignition system) 1954 Chrysler New Yorker that "always drove ****ty for the lady since she got it from her father she brought it to me to make it run good and I discovered that the secondary’s aren’t working and the plugs were old and ****py. The wires were ****. The distributor was in very poor condition." Press this => link.

These threads remind me of the young guy with the flathead in a 50 Ford. They are both ~70-year-old cars that haven't run well at all. The Ford sat for over a decade, and the Chrysler has over 100k miles on it. I went with clapped out on the Ford and I (like another person had mentioned) am going with clapped out on the Chrysler. I'm talking about the engines, brakes, steering(s), suspension(s), etc.

And/or cans of worms. And/or Whac-A-Mole games.

 

That's what I was wondering but didn't ask directly. Thanks.

 

If I have followed this correctly ?????..........I think that Gary is saying he replaced the Pertronix with the points and they did not solve the problem.

That said, I think it was a good move to try replacing the Pertronix as Moriarty suggested as it provided a reasonably inexpensive alternative to the Pertronix to see if the Pertronix was the culprit. So to me, it was a good move for comparison purposes. (I'm a Pertronix fan). I don't think any company ever manufactured a product that didn't produce an occasional dud.

I see Gary's "point" here that he wants to use the Pertronix and give him credit for diligently pursuing that desire. Like him, I see the benefits to that system when it works properly. Both systems are proven over time, so its just a matter of picking the one someone prefers, and either should provide satisfactory performance.

So if both systems were tried and basically produced a similar result........the common denominator appears to be the distributor that they are installed in... and the coil. (Maybe I missed the coil change) Also the wiring connecting everything. One thing with a singular coil is that it has less time to build current as rpms increase, and possibly could be a defective or poorly made coil. I'm just thinking outloud here.......as if it were my own project. So, if it were mine......the next simple thing I would try is reving the engine to the max, and then rotating the distributor slightly by hand a few degrees each way and see what happens.
I'm wondering if the advance mechanism in the distributor is working properly even though it does move. Again, throwing darts into the dark.........

Note: I had an old Pinto wagon one time and the spring was allowing the weight to hit the distributor housing and stick..........sometimes its the simple things.

https://www.onallcylinders.com/2015...d-a-vacuum-gauge-to-pinpoint-engine-problems/





Just throwin this stuff out there, don't know if it will help.

 

The "environment" between the center and ground electrode on a spark plug changes due to many factors as an engine runs. Throttle, A/F ratio, Load, RPM, etc. While an ignition system doesn't know about these factors for the most part, the voltage at which the plugs fire changes as often as the aforementioned "environment" does. A saturated ignition coil, when the points open, collapses the magnetic field and generates voltage in the coil. As soon as that voltage reaches a point where it is high enough to jump the gap at the plug it does so, and all the energy in the coil is dissipated through that spark. So the voltage required to fire EACH spark plug may be different, depending on the "environment". That's why an ignition scope is a pretty good tool to diagnose the health of a system. You can see the voltage required at each plug, and how it changes as mixtures, RPM, load, et. change. Bottom line: it is NOT

Yes. It doesnt have dual Pertronix in it, correct?