Thanks for this thread. Because of the chatter about timing I decided to check the timing on the wagon. The light said that it had 28 degrees of initial advance. I set it back to 10. I also found a loose spark plug. Thank god for old industrial strength engines with 8.5/1 compression. Hopefully nothing permanently bad happened.
Another thought, looking at the vac diagrams, it appears the distributor vacuum advance is(was) on some sort of switched vacuum maze. Its currently hooked to manifold vacuum and has a funny off idle stumble, it will bark the tires, fall in a hole and the come back out. Should I have it hooked to a port vacuum source before the throttle plate so the advance comes on rather than fall off when I stomp on it?
Googling the subject gets a lot of noise about American V8s and nothing else.
can you get a centrifugal advance distributer from an X1/9 or a 128 and just swap the electronic ignition?
I COULD, but the Bosch centrifugal/vacuum transistorized system in place works great, and as shown in the build thread, handles abuse/my stupidity quite well. I've also got it all figured out so it cant strand me on account of a loose ground or other such bullcrap.
Such parts are also rather pricy and you don't see too many 30+ year old SOHC Fiats at the junkyard in MI.
Switched to a vac port near the venturi area that was dead at idle and jumped when you stab the throttle, now the little bugger will actually launch! First time I left the gravel parking pad I accidentally spun the tires, it gained that much low end. I can actually grab the next gear on the factory ~4500 rpm shift points and it will pull immediately.
i had a feeling you were leaving something on the table with a vacuume advance distributer with no vacuume
Yeah, it now runs like an engine designed by a guy who used to design Italian race car motors should. That is, Eh, ok, POWWERRRRRRRR*. Rather then, eh, WTF YO, GO GOD DAMMIT, power?^
*About 60 horsepowers, maybe.
^Lose drag races with old naturally aspirated diesel school buses.
Still need to put a light on it and crank it up to 12 degrees, it was too bright today to see the marks.
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