Brent, with that info, that does sound like a very possibility. That would explain that you seem to be getting fire to all of the plugs, but maybe just not in the correct order. I think you might have hit the nail on the head.

Well no luck,looks like I had the firing order right,I have double checked to make sure all plugs and wires are seated properly and they are ,so not sure what to try next.Lots of oil pressure and no smoke but a hell of a noise under load.

Brent, what type of exhaust is on your car?

maybe go to a shop and ask for a scope reading of ignition?

And only a rant
What I do with carbs and diagnosing a miss problem is whack a warm engine throttle with the air cleaners off. I try to recreate the miss and watch the popping through the intake. I'd watch for the pop and see if flames were coming out and how it was breaking up. It's old school and takes a bit experience but it is always successful in what direction to take, either ignition or engine. A vacuum leak will react differently than an ignition electrical problem etc.

I think that's all I'm worth on this one.

Have you checked all connections to the coil and the grounds?

I have SSI's and a 73 RS exhaust with single pipe,I am now wondering if I have an exhaust leak and not ignition problem.I did climb under the car and I had my son rev the car up but really there is so much air flying around can't really tell what is what.The exhaust doesn't really sound different until under load and then the pfhht phftt sound with every rev.When I first started troubleshooting I thought it was just a dist cap as it was wet underneath and 1 clip had let go so was canted to one side.This caused the rotor to dig into the side of the cap and put a gouge in it.i bought a rotor and cap and then installed them.The button on the under side of the cap broke off after about 10 miles of driving,but it really was still acting up even before the cap broke so I don't think that was the problem.I then took the plugs out and cleaned them,6 and 4 were really fouled so I thought the wires were at fault.I measured resistance of connectors and wires and they were all reading around 4k and they were only a couple of years old anyway.I bought new ones any and put them on,still the same after that.ran some intake cleaner down the carbs and let it sit for 10 minutes and then ran for a few miles,still no better.changed spark plugs and still no go.Talked to George Weathered at Midwesteurosport in Joliet who used to work on the car when it was located in chicago and he suggested for me to just check my work which I did and still no go.The CD box was rebuilt a year ago so I doubt thats the problem.I am out of ideas...

seems to be a new development,my near new rotor after only a couple of miles of test driving has become totally scarred up,the piece that rotates along the posts of the cap has totally ground away and has lifted from the body,lots of carbon as well.Any ideas,the cap seem to be on sturdy enough with it fitting into the notches,the clip system is pretty crappy way to go though.Sorry can't get the camera to work to take a picture of it.

grounds and coil connection look good nothing obvious anyways..

Someone should be able to tell if it's an exhaust leak or not. It wouldn't destroy plugs. This is a great tool. Other mfg besides Snap-on has same unit. It's great for vacuum and exhaust leaks.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1200462358.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1200462385.jpg





I never trusted those Bosch dizzy cap clips. I've seen that design cause problems. I use safety wire tied loose so it can be slipped down. When slipped into clip curved slot tension keeps it there and the wire keeps tension. This kinda crap relaxes me.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1200462662.jpg




CD boxes can fail the day after it's installed. Don't trust it.





"I am out of ideas.."
I'd go for an ignition scope test as your last resort. I can't believe this can't be solved. Ignition is such a simple isolated system. You could even install a temporary simple test non-CD Kettering ignition for $20.



happy hunting



ps: the dizzy wire connection is relatively close to engine block. If it's too close the engine will be breaking up. I don't think it's your problem, just wild help.

Thanks RoninLB,I will try that safety wire aroumd the cap.I will try to get in a test drive tonight but the salt trucks are working today so not sure...

Newtons Laws and the Coriolis Effect
 

Brent, when you get a chance to check it again, see how much up and down play you have in your distributor shaft. From the latest info, it almost sounds like there could possibly be too much play in the shaft. If there is too much play observed, the rotor, along with the shaft, while in high speed horizontal rotation, can get vertical movement of the rotor along with the distributor shaft, causing damage from the lifting of the rotor cap against the rotor button inside the distributor cap, and causing damage to the rotor button area inside the distributor cap, and possibly with enough inertia, to force a cap clip to pop loose allowing the center rotation of the rotor, to gouge into the distributor cap, due to the now canted, position of the distributor cap. Just a thought. Good luck!! Tony. SmileWavy

This is very true. I'm not dismissing the potential for fuel/air problems, but ignition systems do in fact behave as Quicksilver describes.

I will check for play tonight,high speed doesn't really factor into the miss though it is more a load thing.I can rev the motor up just fine sitting in neutral and it seems to be lighting all cylinders but as soon as any load is introduced such as shifting into 2nd at 2000 rpm or such the noise comes back with a vengeance.I have screwed with the carb mixture too trying to lean out the sooted up cylinders so I will have to start from scratch and balance these things once I find the problem.

I checked the distrbutor for play last night and it seems pretty tight to me,it does move a notch clockwise which must be for the advance I am thinking.I took off the scored rotor and cap and replaced with two old parts I had changed a few months back and also fixed the clip so there is more pressure to hold the cap tight.I took the car for a test with some improvement over what I had,still had some missing but less than before which leads me to believe I must be on the right track.I have ordered new cap and rotor from our host and will take out plugs again and clean as they are probably fouled again.when I took #1 plug wire out of the cap the end pulled out of my brand new wire.The end looks like it just screws in similar to whats on the beru connector on the plug end.Can I just screw this back in.I paid $160 bucks for these wires and hope they are not screwed up.

When you say "look good", did you just check to see if they were tight or did you remove them and clean the lead AND where it it grounds at on the chassis. I'm sorry if it seems as thought I'm harping on the ignition ground thing, but I had the EXACT same situation happen to some friends of mine at the track. Granted it was an Alfa but ignition is ignition. High speed misfire under load. They swapped out EVERYTHING ignition related, they cleaned and rebuilt the carbs (they're an Alfa shop so they could do it quickly), checked timing, checked voltages, and so forth. Guess what was the one thing they didn't check....the coil ground! Once they cleaned it up the car ran awesome. Measuring this kind of stuff is really tough unless you have access to a dyno to load it up.

only some wild thoughts



confirm ignition timing advance with a light

Check carb balance with 2 synchrometers if possible. One is ok, two better.
If off balance sometimes they will feel ok a lower rpm but cause a scrambled miss over 3,000 rpm.

Did you try the Kettering replacement ignition with your points?

Describe the miss inside the carb intake with air cleaners removed. Don't look down it but do flames come out if you try to max out the miss with the throttle.

Did you pull out the air corrector jets and confirm they are very clean?

Hm, sounds like bad spark maybe due to "cap/rotor" to me. Was the rotor properly seated. It's odd that it gets ground up? Report back when you have the new stuff installed.

Also, check that your spark plug cables are in good condition. If they "leak" and arc internally it would explain poor spark. And this gets worse with humidity. Depending on age I would replace them just to be sure.

Ingo

I will report back in a week or so after a well deserved mexican vacation.I have ordered cap/rotor and will install when I receive it.I took plugs out again tonight and they look pretty good, a little lean if anything.The wires are brand new and checked every one of them with extra plug and they all spark pretty good.I can borrow a timing light and syncrometer from my 86 Carrera neighbor so will check that as well.Thanks all....

also netspeed I haven't actually taken ground off and cleaned just yet but will try when I get back.

It seems as though I have found most of my problem,after checking my points gap again today found they were a little wide 0.020 instead of .012,I then changed the gap and ran it up the road to friend with a timing light.The timing was way off,changed it back to spec and now runs a whole lot better.The carbs are now unbalanced after my screwing around with them so that will be my next chore.Any ideas why timing would just go out of spec suddenly..