15-11-2017, 07:21 PM
(This post was last modified: 16-11-2017, 09:42 AM by Colin Wilks.)
Hadn’t realised that my question would be quite so contentious!
My car is a 1934 Type 65 with the original high(er) compression engine, two bearing crank and splash lubrication. Chassis number is 193400 and engine number is 194013. The previous owner went to the trouble of swapping this engine out for one of the many spare units he had kicking around when he was using the car regularly. He then reinstalled it about five years ago in anticipation of sale. Maybe he was overly cautious, I don’t know, but I do know that a good way to risk knackering it is to rev the bollocks off it with too much advance. The PO has clearly looked after the car in the last five years - oil and grease appears fresh, but the car has hardly turned a wheel during that time.
I have calculated that my manual advance/retard mechanism provides about 8 degrees of movement at the distributor (10mm travel on a radius of 45mm), which equates to about 16 crank degrees. I have decided to set up the static timing at TDC with the manual mechanism at R. This will give me a maximum of 16 degrees advance BTDC, which allows me to start the car very easily and to use the full movement of the mechanism without risk of over cooking it. Having the manual advance/retard mechanism makes it very easy for me to establish the advance where the engine is happy to idle, so I can then reset the static timing at “R” which will give me some additional advance to play with.
My overriding objective is to establish the minimum advance I can get away with consistent with making respectable progress. I hope that this approach will ensure minimum stress on the engine whilst I get used to it.
I can then start working out if the Zenith 30 VE1 downdraft carb is up to snuff!
I’ve posted this to let people know what I’ve decided to do. I always find it annoying on forums when there's no end to the story.
My car is a 1934 Type 65 with the original high(er) compression engine, two bearing crank and splash lubrication. Chassis number is 193400 and engine number is 194013. The previous owner went to the trouble of swapping this engine out for one of the many spare units he had kicking around when he was using the car regularly. He then reinstalled it about five years ago in anticipation of sale. Maybe he was overly cautious, I don’t know, but I do know that a good way to risk knackering it is to rev the bollocks off it with too much advance. The PO has clearly looked after the car in the last five years - oil and grease appears fresh, but the car has hardly turned a wheel during that time.
I have calculated that my manual advance/retard mechanism provides about 8 degrees of movement at the distributor (10mm travel on a radius of 45mm), which equates to about 16 crank degrees. I have decided to set up the static timing at TDC with the manual mechanism at R. This will give me a maximum of 16 degrees advance BTDC, which allows me to start the car very easily and to use the full movement of the mechanism without risk of over cooking it. Having the manual advance/retard mechanism makes it very easy for me to establish the advance where the engine is happy to idle, so I can then reset the static timing at “R” which will give me some additional advance to play with.
My overriding objective is to establish the minimum advance I can get away with consistent with making respectable progress. I hope that this approach will ensure minimum stress on the engine whilst I get used to it.
I can then start working out if the Zenith 30 VE1 downdraft carb is up to snuff!
I’ve posted this to let people know what I’ve decided to do. I always find it annoying on forums when there's no end to the story.