Timing Advice Requested
in HUDSON
I have a '34 Hudson 8 with a 254 motor.
The car only gets used on short runs because I live on the Isle of Wight (for those unfamiliar with British geography, this is a small island just off the south coast of England).
In consequence, I've had a problem with plugs sooting-up very quickly.
In an effort to prevent this, I've swapped to a hotter plug (Champion RJ12C) and only use 5% Ethanol fuel because British 10% is awful.
However, I'm getting an annoying exhaust backfire on the over-run after releasing the accelerator pedal and the plugs are still getting rather sooty.
This suggests to me that the ignition timing could need changing (presently TDC).
Please may I have some suggestions as to what might be a better timing point for my set-up ?
The car only gets used on short runs because I live on the Isle of Wight (for those unfamiliar with British geography, this is a small island just off the south coast of England).
In consequence, I've had a problem with plugs sooting-up very quickly.
In an effort to prevent this, I've swapped to a hotter plug (Champion RJ12C) and only use 5% Ethanol fuel because British 10% is awful.
However, I'm getting an annoying exhaust backfire on the over-run after releasing the accelerator pedal and the plugs are still getting rather sooty.
This suggests to me that the ignition timing could need changing (presently TDC).
Please may I have some suggestions as to what might be a better timing point for my set-up ?
Comments
My car is an LTS and so has a manual choke, which is set properly for my Daytona Universal carb (Zenith 228 lookalike with an adjustable main jet).
There is no bypass in the intake manifold; it's an ROC re-cast that just has an empty space inside and has a detachable blanking plate on the top where, presumably, the by-pass control would go - do I need to do something about that ?
The ROC official guidance is to set the timing to the long arm of the H on the flywheel to cope with modern fuel - does that sound right to you ? I haven't done that yet as I wanted to check it out on this Forum first.
Geoff - please don't ever say to an Isle of Wight local (they're known as Caulkheads) that we don't have any hills - they're very proud of our 850 feet high "mountain" !
Regards, Tom
The original little box for the climatic is still present. It is on the side of the collector.
It had been set at TDC by a local "expert" classic car shop
It's now set for the long arm of the H at idle and the popping has gone.
The plugs are still sooty and I'm going to try a blanked off gasket as Bob suggests and I'll drop the float in the carb by 1/8 inch to see if that helps.