There you go again with your newfangulations.
Stick to flints, I say.

Lots of sarcasm.Ramon i know your joking,but i wouldn't even think about selling that car! . EFi is much better than carbs like lehto said,but carbs are easier to maintain to a basic mechanc.

Basic mechanic - yup, that's me.
The more there is to go wrong the more it will.
Why do modern cars have such a short life - too complex.
No ABS for me, no airbags, no aircon, no power steering, no auto choke, and especially - no electronics. I admire you chaps who can keep an efi system in order, but I know my limitations!

That just isn't true, modern cars are much more reliable than those of yore, despite the owners usually taking little care of them.

Carbs require periodic adjustment and only give compromised fueling at best. Contact breaker points reliable? You don't have to remove cylinder heads for periodic de-coking anymore!

More reliable yes, but the average life of a new car is down to about 7 years due to the 'black boxes' failing. Once the car oes out of production, the custom chips are not made anymore, so replacing the boxes becomes impossible.

Carbs and points are totally reliable if given the correct maintenance (IME- the imp'll go and lunch it's condensor now). Decoking is mainly due to petrol and oil formulations than the engine technology.

For a DIY mechanic, the Lucarse EFI injection system is a nightmare of analogue electronics- it is possibly one of the most advanced analogue systems ever. But Analogue reduces the reliability of the control electronics. My Dad had (seemingly) constant problems with the EFI on his SP Vitesse, and at one point was talking about going the big weber carb route.

James

Just to add to this what do the readers think of the heat insulating wrap from Rimmer's for the tubular exhaust manifolds (if you have stainless steel ones) as this is claimed to reduce underbonnet temperatures exacerbated by even more heat generated by the tubular manifolds?

To add to the stalling problem, as Ramon provided me with the steps before on another post, I tried some of his advice as as the car did it again (but I hadn't got too far from home!). A ex-leyland mechanic helped as well and we suspected the coil was the weak link and advised replacing it and new HT leads. We checked the fuel pump and filter as running it on low tank may have made things even worse - the filter didn't push out much fuel and only air - as advised by the dealer manual etc. we needed to de-pressurise the system (the fuel gauge doesn't always glow yellow for reserve - in fact never as I now rememeber) Maybe this could be something to look at?

(Mine is the old Lucas type with four posts I have a replacement one with two posts might have to swap the leads from dizzy)

Hi Yorky, comments in red and blue.

the yorkshireman wrote:

Just to add to this what do the readers think of the heat insulating wrap from Rimmer's for the tubular exhaust manifolds (if you have stainless steel ones) as this is claimed to reduce underbonnet temperatures exacerbated by even more heat generated by the tubular manifolds? This is an extract from my article on exhaust systems explaining some of the science involved. Returning again to the postulation that “a bigger exhaust is a better exhaust”, let’s look at the size of the pipes from a different perspective? Heat! Exhaust gas is hot, and it would be good to keep it hot throughout the exhaust system. Hot gas is less dense than cold gas, so the colder the gas the heavier it gets and therefore takes more effort to remove it from the system. Larger pipes give the hot gas an opportunity to slow down and give the gas more time to cool en-route to the tailpipe. We don't want our engine to be pushing a heavy mass of exhaust gas out of the tailpipe and it is not just that an extremely large exhaust pipe will cause a slow exhaust flow, which will in turn give the gas plenty of time to cool off en route. Overlarge piping will also allow our exhaust pulses to achieve a higher level of entropy (Sorry! Entropy is the way energy spreads out in a process), which will take all of the hard gained header tuning and throw it out the window, as pulses will not have the same tendency to line up as they would in a smaller pipe. If keeping the interior of the exhaust system as hot as possible is an advantage, then coating the entire exhaust system with thermal insulation material, such as header wrap or a ceramic thermal barrier reduces the cooling effect significantly. Cost may be prohibitive but a bonus side effect would be a cooler engine bay and down-pipe area. I would add that another advantage is the reduction in noise due to insulation. Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! To add to the stalling problem, as Ramon provided me with the steps before on another post, I tried some of his advice as as the car did it again (but I hadn't got too far from home!). A ex-leyland mechanic helped as well and we suspected the coil was the weak link and advised replacing it and new HT leads. We checked the fuel pump and filter as running it on low tank may have made things even worse - the filter didn't push out much fuel and only air - as advised by the dealer manual etc. we needed to de-pressurise the system Fuel flow from the filter should be continous and absolutely without any air. Air will compress in the fuel rail and would interrupt fuel flow to the injectors. (the fuel gauge doesn't always glow yellow for reserve - in fact never as I now rememeber) Maybe this could be something to look at? Your yellow fuel level indicator lamp has a delay unit behind the fuel gauge to prevent flickering which is probably faulty due to the internal nichrome heating wire being broken, thus failing to operate the bimetal contacts. BUT it could also be a faulty tank sender.

Thanks I'll try and look into it

Hi Kerosene,

I had a similar problem and it turned out to be carb related. It was difficult to find because I tuned the carb (in my case Holley) according to the manual, and set the floats to the default setting. It turned out, that at this setting, my primary float chamber was over filling, which meant that I was flooding when I accellerated. A small but sensitive adjustment sorted everything out.

I was also running rich...

It's worth a check.
Good luck,
Ronan