78 VW bug miss
 

working on a friends VW bug.
new coil
new (i think) permatune dist. anyway,its not points
swapped plug wires
sawpped plugs
new cap
new rotor

it has a miss ONLY on number 1.
you can see it with the timing light.
the light fails to flash when it misses.

not sure how an electronic dist like this one could miss ONLY on #1.

pulled the plug. it was very white like a plug that was too hot.
pulled #2 and it was grey/black more like it should be.

compression, valves or anything like that would not effect the plug firing.

Is the plug wire shorting out to the sheetmetal? Mine did this, I could see it arcing at night.

nope.
swapped it with another one and replaced it with a new one.

the miss stays on #1

only thing NOT swapped is the dist.
it is electronic and new and if i remember correctly it had this miss before we replaced the dist.

Ask at the Samba?

Put back in the points. Try that and see if the miss is gone. My brother's daily driver is a 54 VW Bug. He has tried the electronic distributors, and ended up going back to points. One of the local PCA members has had his 1967 912 for 37 years. He tried electronic points and it never ran "right" and he went back to points.

I understand that is like saying 1930 technology is better than the new stuff, but points are certainly tested and proved to work. Finding good quality points is the hard part.

It wouldn't be running too hot if it's not firing.

Is there much play on the distributer shaft, cam lobes worn, does that electronic add on still pick up off the lobes? I would also go back to points if possible, they are pretty reliable.

Is it the original fuel injection?

Lean gives you too hot. Volksmobiles do not dig lean at all.

Do you know whether the miss was there before you started?

Initial sign of cam-lobe wear, maybe?

_

I'd be asking myself why is No.1 running lean.

This. I installed per Pertronix (sp?) in my friends 240Z. For the life of me, we could not get it to run right. Turns out it was a bad one.