Autolite plugs have a very hard electrode which do not self clean very well (foul) Platinum plugs are an even harder electrode which is even easier to foul. They do not work well in any engine that will dirty a plug.
A friend of mine bought an L.E. modal brand new. He found out they were fitted with Morris Marina rear axles and he took the car back. They changed the axle under warranty. Interesting.
The MGB used the same your axle from 68 till the end of production… that would be before the Morris Marina came out. The marina may have used the same axle, but so did a lot of other vehicles under the corporate banner, including lorries, I don’t understand what that has to do with any issues with the car.
Because Weber carburetors are kits for people that can't wrap their head around tuning CV carbs. 90% of CV carb problems are ignition problems. Weber carb kits do not come optimally tuned for British engines and they get traded around a lot so you really don't get an optimally tuned carb.
The recommended jetting on the carb is the same whether you’re installing it on a 948 or an 1800 and everything in between, so the jetting doesn’t work very well on quite a few of those engines. With a little research, there are people out there that have sorted out jetting for specific cars that work better than the recommended one but if you try to do it yourself, it could take a while and you could spend a fair bit of time and money getting it right. The manifold that it sits on is not that great performance wise, so don’t ever think of this as a performance set up as some people want to sell them as. These are great for people who are used to working on Holley carburetors as they know how to work on them, and that’s why they are so popular (it is effectively a reproduction of an old holley as used on early 70s Fords from the factory) I will admit part of my dislike form is my lack of experience with them and my unwillingness to really dig in and learn them. SU’s look the part and work great so I stick with those anytime the Stromberg is removed, but the Stromberg can be made to work perfectly fine. It just won’t provide the power and the snappy acceleration.
@@mgbgtguy Thanks for the quality reply. My MGB runs like a top, starts the first try, nice throaty purr, so I'm happy with the ZS, I just keep hearing my friend's remark "Put a Weber on that and let that engine breathe." That being said, I'm tearing down a 1958 MGA roller that has twin SU's. My goal is to rebuild it for vintage racing and I was thinking of the Weber for that, but your points about the intake manifold and jets were noted. And lastly, I'm just down the road in Cincy "O-H...."
@@mgbgtguy That's why I call them Pinto carbs. Yes they can be made to work ok and they do have an accellerator pump and a power valve so they feel good to American car drivers. But as you point out, the manifolds are generic trash and the gas mileage shows it. They just don't belong on a British car. Might as well put a Thermoquad on a Jaguar six.
my guess is that the coil was receiving current all night. maybe the ignition switch was on? anyway, your instincts are corrent, IMO. the coil's toast...but it's just a coil. about any old coil will work. and get a new plug wire to fit the coil, as the one on that coil was made for it and its design is over half a century old. modern coil wires look a bit different where it plugs into the coil, but the sparkplug end should be okay no matter what. and the reason the spark varied from weak to strong and back again was probably related to damage to the coil. then manifested itself with cycles of overheating and cooling. heat creates resistance in wires and would vary the amount of high voltage the coil can make. thus the strong, weak, strong spark cycles. the coil needs to make 20,000v or more to jump the sparkplug gap properly. and it must be constant. ...it wasn't. the pop or backfire through the carb was probably caused by unburnt fuel igniting in the exhaust manifold and blowing back. when spark is inconsistent, unburnt fuel builds up and will ignite at unexpected times and in uncommon areas and seeks relief...it just blew back through the most convienent orifice.
I really don’t understand what you’re getting at in this post, there’s nothing wrong with the coil on the car. They just had a 12 V coil hooked to a 6 V wire. The result was it was getting too weak of a spark for proper ignition.
@@mgbgtguy sorry, wrong channel. ...avoiding youtube advertisments has recently complicated viewing and has forced me to have two different browsers open with a youtube tab open on each one. one for watching and another for commenting and "liking". sometimes i'll have a total of four channels open at once. ...got confused when commenting. haha. my mistake.
@@mgbgtguy yes, that's true, but i watch all youtube channels on my desktop with tripple 32" flat screens. so i'm afraid, unfortunately, that my error is not so easily excused. i wish it was... it just so happened that both channels (and all four open tabs) i was viewing were "car" channels and both involved fixing coil issues.
A follow up video on the LE would be great.
An other outstanding video and presentation. A follow up video on the Limited Edition would be great.
Thank you!
Champion or NGK plugs. Nice tutorial on choosing a coil for your British car. Moss used to have a pretty good video in British ignition systems.
Good info, thanks for posting.
Glad it was helpful!
Thank You.
You're welcome
Autolite plugs have a very hard electrode which do not self clean very well (foul) Platinum plugs are an even harder electrode which is even easier to foul. They do not work well in any engine that will dirty a plug.
A friend of mine bought an L.E. modal brand new. He found out they were fitted with Morris Marina rear axles and he took the car back. They changed the axle under warranty. Interesting.
The MGB used the same your axle from 68 till the end of production… that would be before the Morris Marina came out. The marina may have used the same axle, but so did a lot of other vehicles under the corporate banner, including lorries, I don’t understand what that has to do with any issues with the car.
Great info. Why don't you like the Weber? A friend of mine told me that's the way to go. I have a 79 MGB with a ZS.
Because Weber carburetors are kits for people that can't wrap their head around tuning CV carbs. 90% of CV carb problems are ignition problems. Weber carb kits do not come optimally tuned for British engines and they get traded around a lot so you really don't get an optimally tuned carb.
The recommended jetting on the carb is the same whether you’re installing it on a 948 or an 1800 and everything in between, so the jetting doesn’t work very well on quite a few of those engines. With a little research, there are people out there that have sorted out jetting for specific cars that work better than the recommended one but if you try to do it yourself, it could take a while and you could spend a fair bit of time and money getting it right. The manifold that it sits on is not that great performance wise, so don’t ever think of this as a performance set up as some people want to sell them as.
These are great for people who are used to working on Holley carburetors as they know how to work on them, and that’s why they are so popular (it is effectively a reproduction of an old holley as used on early 70s Fords from the factory)
I will admit part of my dislike form is my lack of experience with them and my unwillingness to really dig in and learn them. SU’s look the part and work great so I stick with those anytime the Stromberg is removed, but the Stromberg can be made to work perfectly fine. It just won’t provide the power and the snappy acceleration.
@@mgbgtguy Thanks for the quality reply. My MGB runs like a top, starts the first try, nice throaty purr, so I'm happy with the ZS, I just keep hearing my friend's remark "Put a Weber on that and let that engine breathe." That being said, I'm tearing down a 1958 MGA roller that has twin SU's. My goal is to rebuild it for vintage racing and I was thinking of the Weber for that, but your points about the intake manifold and jets were noted. And lastly, I'm just down the road in Cincy "O-H...."
@@mgbgtguy That's why I call them Pinto carbs. Yes they can be made to work ok and they do have an accellerator pump and a power valve so they feel good to American car drivers. But as you point out, the manifolds are generic trash and the gas mileage shows it. They just don't belong on a British car.
Might as well put a Thermoquad on a Jaguar six.
my guess is that the coil was receiving current all night. maybe the ignition switch was on? anyway, your instincts are corrent, IMO. the coil's toast...but it's just a coil. about any old coil will work. and get a new plug wire to fit the coil, as the one on that coil was made for it and its design is over half a century old. modern coil wires look a bit different where it plugs into the coil, but the sparkplug end should be okay no matter what.
and the reason the spark varied from weak to strong and back again was probably related to damage to the coil. then manifested itself with cycles of overheating and cooling. heat creates resistance in wires and would vary the amount of high voltage the coil can make. thus the strong, weak, strong spark cycles. the coil needs to make 20,000v or more to jump the sparkplug gap properly. and it must be constant. ...it wasn't.
the pop or backfire through the carb was probably caused by unburnt fuel igniting in the exhaust manifold and blowing back. when spark is inconsistent, unburnt fuel builds up and will ignite at unexpected times and in uncommon areas and seeks relief...it just blew back through the most convienent orifice.
I really don’t understand what you’re getting at in this post, there’s nothing wrong with the coil on the car. They just had a 12 V coil hooked to a 6 V wire. The result was it was getting too weak of a spark for proper ignition.
@@mgbgtguy sorry, wrong channel. ...avoiding youtube advertisments has recently complicated viewing and has forced me to have two different browsers open with a youtube tab open on each one. one for watching and another for commenting and "liking".
sometimes i'll have a total of four channels open at once. ...got confused when commenting. haha. my mistake.
@@bladerunner6282 I get it. The way things come up on Smart phones. It’s easy to do sometimes. 👍🏻
@@mgbgtguy yes, that's true, but i watch all youtube channels on my desktop with tripple 32" flat screens. so i'm afraid, unfortunately, that my error is not so easily excused. i wish it was...
it just so happened that both channels (and all four open tabs) i was viewing were "car" channels and both involved fixing coil issues.