My carbed 2056 uses a Mallory Unilite ignition. All summer long I have been fighting intermitant misses leading to the motor dieing at idle. After dicking with the carbs and adding fresh spark plugs, I am now moving to ignition.

So here is how my system is set up.

Bosch blue coil.
Mallory Unilite ignition.
The ignition is behind a resistor block.
MSD spiral wound plug wires.
NKG b5es plugs pregapped (one heat range hotter then stock as suggested in the resent spark plug thread) .

My tach is not dancing when I have a miss. The idle indicated drops as expected, no drama. So I don't think that the coil is grounding out or arcing.

As I understand the Mallory dizzy, it either works or it does not work, and there is not a lot of in-between.

My primary suspects are the plug wires. I am using the MSD spiral wound wires suggested for use with the Mallory, and I have only been using them this season.

Since you are not supposed to use the regular plug wires with a Mallory (as they can somehow cause the optical unit to burn out) buying replacement wires on a hunch is kinda expensive. Am I chasing my tail with this?

Also, I am using the stock gap. I think I am supposed to be able to use a wider gap with the Mallory, which will give better ignition. What kind of gap should I be shooting for? If it does turn out to be the plug wires as the problem area, should I go back to the stock heat range plugs, or stay with the hotter ranged plugs?

Oh, and for the "go back to FI" crowd, my motor is using a cam that would cause D Jet to commit suicide. In this case, it is not an option.

Zach

Running the stock gap you probably ok on , I'd stick with the hotter plugs. You didn't list a MSD unit or similar box, you could check the plug wires using a good multimeter also the coil for spec, find out the specific ohms per foot of the subject wires . Hook each one up to the meter to see if the wire specs out, wiggle them around and such to see if the is a possible break in one of em, check your resistor also . I can't say much about the Mallory dizz , no experience with them. Good luck , as ignitions can make ya crazy .....

Jack / Jaxdream

When you say the ignition is behind a resistor block are you referring to the resistor that Mallory shows in line with the positive coil junction for coils that do not have the proper internal resistance? I've been told the Bosch blue coil has adequate internal resistance and does not need the additional ballast resistor.

i just went through this with the coil resistance for a pertronix (IF mallory has the same requirement). IT required 2.5 to 3.0 ohm resistance. the mallery blaster only has 0.7 so a resister was needed. we ended up using a new stock ford (points) coil. it had 2.5 ohms, so no additional resister.
the pertronix guy DID say they see weird intermittant issues (not just run/no run) when a needed resister is not run. again may or may not relate to mallory
F.Y.I. local flaps carries 77 chrysler van 318 ballest resister was 1.8 ohms and chevy had one @ 2.5 ohms .

I am running mallory dist (with circuit guard box), mallory wires, blue coil, and normal
heat range plugs on my 2270. No resistor. Runs and idles well once warmed up.

John

Stock gap since you didn't really increase the spark. I don't know nothin about having to use Mallory wires. I have stock-ish wires on mine and it works just fine (over two years now). Also have a Bosch blue coil and I didn't add a ballast resistor, but that's dependent upon the model blue coil you're using. Some have internal resistance, some don't.

Do you know which cylinder is missing?
its most likely an idle jet

I don't think its an idle jet. all summer long I have been fighting this. I pull the idles, examine them and don't find a blockage. I clean them anyway before I reinstall.

When it is sitting at an idle I can hear it miss every now and again.

I checked my fuel filter and it was clean.
Before putting the gas tank back in the car during my restoration I cleaned out all the silt at the bottom of the tank. It was spotless on installation. All the fuel lines are new - including the tunnel lines which are the Tangerine SS lines.

I don't know which cylinder is missing, though. I suspect that I am loosing two though, as the car will idle just fine all day on three, the only indication being a 100 rpm drop in idle speed. I suspect it is #2 as one of the culprets, but that is more of a hunch right now and not a proven fact.

I guess what I need to do is get out my timing light and start checking to see which lines are missing at idle. If the miss is electric, the timing light should fail to flash when a miss occurs.

How do you tell which blue coils have the internal ballast resistor?

Zach

.........AT what R,P.M have you set your idle at?___________. what is the ignition timing at this Idle rpm?_____________.....what is the total ignition timing ? (all in) _____________.

Idle is set at 1100 RPM. I am using the grey springs for the Mallory which is I think either 12 or 16 advance at idle, but I have never timed for idle. I set timing at 28 degrees full advance, which I hit by 3K rpm.

Zach

The mallory distributor springs don't govern degrees of advance, only the shape of the advance curve.
Amount of centrifugal advance is controlled by re-clocking the advance plate, using a plastic gauge provided in their spring kits.
We also bend the spring tabs to raise the rpm where advance begins.
You should have 16 degrees of centrifugal advance, starting at 12 degrees initial. At 1100 rpm idle I wouldn't be surprised if you are already seeing some centrifugal advance.

I got my Mallory when I got the engine. I had always wondered what the little ring of red plastic "keys" were.

I had to replace the optical sensor last year. Would that install have caused my advance plate to shift? I followed the instructions on the optical reinstall and don't remember needing to reset anything. But that does not mean I was supposed to.

This issue is infuriating. When the car is running, its running like a bat out of hell, very strong. but when it starts missing, driving the car at lower RPMs can become very challenging. Part of the reason that I have my ilde set high was to give me some lead time before the engine would stall out during a missfire event.

Zach

Replacing the timing unit shouldn't affect advance settings, but you do need the optical unit out in order to set the advance.
You have to loosen the two Torx screws to move the plate, then insert the 16 degree key in the opening, close the opening against the key and re-tighten the screws. Bending the spring tabs to tighten the springs is just as important as setting the max advance.
Once you determine exactly which cylinder is dropping out you'll be able to diagnose the problem.
If you don't have a pyrometer to check which exhaust pipe is cold, you can pull one plug wire at a time from the distributor cap (using insulated pliers). The one that doesn't affect idle is connected to the bad cylinder.

.........thanks chris, EXCELLANT advise.......So Vacca, what you should do is put a ...adjustable strobe timing light on the engine and determine what your ignition timing range is through out the engine rpm range......you probably need MORE timing at Idle and lower rpms.......Here,s why I say this...In a previous post you said that you installed a camshaft with "lots" of exhaust duration., the additional exhaust opening , in consert with the intake cycle,is cooling off the spark plugs too much, causing them to misfire in a "rich" mode.(low RPM,s.)...This is one reason you can use/have found the highest heat range spark plugs to work., they reduced (but did not eliminate) misfiring....eventually, after you sort out the timing issues, You may need to "lean up" the idle circuit/acceleration pump circuit to really get the engine perfect.

Get your meter out. If the resistance across the +/- terminals is 3 ohms or more, it's internally ballasted. If it's less than 2 ohms, it's not.

Is the blue coil the preferred coil for the mallory? Or should I need to buy the mallory coil? Would moving to the mallory coil give me a larger spark?

I am thinking I am going to pull the dizzy ad just make sure it was set right, since I was not the person who set it up i the first place.

Zach

.VACCA.........Check all the ignition timing positions, Before you pull the distributor......that way you will have a base line of where you are at.....and what changes/ direction/where you should go.

You know, I am running a carbed 2056 with 494 webcam, Jets are 65 idles, 125 mains, 200 air, F11 e-tubes. I went to a malllory with the grey springs, hoping for a big improvement over the 009. While the car does pull stronger, its still sluggish in the low end, and when i mash on it. WTF? Should I go up on my idles and mains? Thinking maybe i need to get a wide band O2 gauge to diagnose it, but having just popped 300 for the Mallory, I am not quite ready to shell out another bunch of cash.

my guess is that you are over rich.
my engine is VERY similar to yours. My cam is like a 494 with a little added exhaust duration. My when I went from 60 idles to 65 idles I started getting a LOT of plug fouling and low speed misses unless I kept the engine turning above 3K (ie, get off the idle circuit.)

Zach

So do you think i should go down on idles and mains, or both?

go down to 60 idles and try that. I tried 130 mains, and wet back to 125s. Also, are you using a stock spark heat range? Try going one range hotter then stock if you are.

Oh, and start yer own damn thread! I want my ignition fixed!

Zach

Just briging this back to the for front. If I ca get a bigger spark, that might be very helpful.

Zach

Here's some good reading on the blue coil
http://www.ratwell.com/technical/BlueCoil.html

And also here, I think he gets into the advantages of a jacobs or mallory coil.
http://www.shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=124069

We like to use blue coils. There's nothing special about most Mallory coils.
There's no reason to pull the distributor to adjust the advance plate. As long as you can get the two nuts loose that hold the optical unit in position, you can do it all in place.
Measure the coil resistance and remove the ballast if you don't need it.

I doubt there's anything wrong with the wires, but a bad coil could cause the symptoms you describe.

You need to verify that the Mallory is set up properly, as I told Zach above.
Just putting in two grey springs isn't enough by any measure.
The other adjustments (and possible corrections) are even more important.
In fact, we don't even use Mallory's springs anymore when we set up a distributor.

What springs do you like to use? Is this something we can buy from you?

Zach

I have a couple of jets smaller i can try. Not real sure on the heat range. Whatever the bird sells is what I am running. I dont think I am fouling, the plugs allways look to be ashy grey/yellow when i pull them. Oh, and on my old style webers, i have the accel pump fulcrum on the one that gives the bigger pump stroke.

We found a supplier with a spring that has the same tension properties as the Mallory grey springs, but the ends aren't quite the same. Therefore we have to customize the ends in order to use them. If we had to buy a spring kit every time we sell a distributor, the price would be even higher.
I'm not planning to offer them for resale any time soon.

okay, so the springs you are using are a direct replacement for the mallory gray ones.

I'll start checkig my coil to see whats what.

I thought one of the benefits of the mallory ignition was a hotter spark then stock. Is this not the case?

Zach

It might be hotter, since the dwell is set electronically, unlike with points.
We've noticed that if the engine is allowed to idle for a long time, the Mallory dizzy has a tendency to overheat a coil. Mallory coils seem especially sensitive to this phenomenon.

From the above post:

This guy does comparative testing using a 30 year old coil?

Hey, someone check me here.
Using a meter for testing ohm resistance, I had it set to 200.
Other options were 2K, 20K, 200K, and 2M.

If I had the right choice for measuring ohm resistance, I may have found part of my issue.

My coil is showing 3.4ohms resistance across the positive and negative contacts.

The PO of this engine had the coil wired through the resistor block, and assuming that I needed to do the same, I did. This weekend I will rewire my ignition and see what happens.

However, the resistor was only giving 1.1 ohms resistance also, so I may be using my tester improperly or the PO was using the wrong resistor in the first place.

Also, that thread on STF seems to make a pretty good case for the Jacobs coils. Is there a reason why the blue coils are preferred here? It would seem that a higher power coil would be what you want for a hot rodded motor (even it it is mildly hot rodded compared to some folks here) so long as you don't overpower your plugs, wires and cap.

Asking lots of questions, yeah... But learning a lot.

Zach

200 scale... check... 3.4 ohms at coil... check... +1.1 ohm resister... =4.5 ohms...NO check
too much resistance. again i'm not sure mallory's ohm requirements, i'm going off pertronix' and they want 2.5 to 3.0 resistance. i could see how there is a drivability if it has that much extra resistance.

Dude... ditch the resistor. You don't need it. You measured right. Your coil is already ballasted.

I agree about ditching the resister. That is going to happen this weekend.

But what about addig a more powerful coil? The Jacobs coils seem to be very sturdy and produce much more power the the blue coil. The Jacobs Ultra has specific mention for the Mallory Unilite in its instruction maual, and is rated at 55K volts over the Bosch Blue 18K volts.

Zach

Check to see if your plug wires will be ok with that kind of voltage increase , also you can open up the plug gap some if you install a higher voltage coil , maybe to .040-.045 to use the increased spark. check your rotor and cap for spark burn on them . Good luck , it seems that you're on the road to recovery!!!

Jack / Jaxdream

Just off the wall ? and something that I came across in installling my 6AL a few weeks ago. They talked about NEVER running consecutive firing cylinders wires right next to each other? Scavaging spark from the cylinder that is firing.

I had mine right next to each other when I first installed but have in the last week seperated them. Have not really drove the car enough either way to know if there was an improvement. It had become so much smoother with the addition of the box I was surprised. Had bought the 6AL mostly for over rev protection(think shift light) on my 2056 in AX situations.

Maybe Chris has some input on this ??

Good Luck, Zach

You certainly can, and if you're trying to chase an ignition issue it may in fact "go away" with a higher voltage coil. I've never felt the need on my carbd 2056. The blue coil works fine for me.

Okay, partial success!!!

We got out of a training class way early today, so I cam home, rewired my ignition, and collected some more data.

First off, OMFG! That rewire changed the cars starting habits like you would not believe! The "pump the gas twice, crank for 20 seconds until it fires while playing with the throttle" was gone. I started my usual routine and the engine caught so fast I turned off the car in surprise! If the engine stalled I could restart it by just reaching in the window and turning the key. I could almost never do that before. I suspect this will be a major change for the best.

But, it still idled crapily and would sputter and die unless I gave it more gas. You can hear the misfires. So I got out my timing light to check spark on the different leads. I held the timing light on each lead for ~ a minute and just watched the flashes while the engine idled.

My idle for tonight's experiment was set ~1000 rpm.

Plug wire 1 was a metronome. It never skipped a beat that I saw.

Plug 2, 3, and 4 all had seemingly random misfire events. When the engine would sputter you could see that it was not getting spark on that cycle. Most of the time they would fire, but sometimes they simply would not.

However, when I added even just a little more gas, the misfires seemed to go away. Its like the timing got noticeably better around 1400-1600 RPM.

The plugs are new - under 1 hour run time on them. The MSD spiral wound wires are ~1.5 years old - but the fact that the spark gets better as the engine starts to advance leas me to believe that the issue may be with the Mallory's initial timing set before it starts its mechanical advance. I did not check where it was timing in at idle. If I can get time again tonight I will run out and check that.

Any ideas?

Zach

Hey Zach, what do you set your timing for at higher RPMS? 3k-3.2k?

Okay, I just tested my timing at idle (1000 rpm) and 4K.
At idle, it is set at 8 degrees BTDC.
At 4K it is set to 28 degrees BTDC.

This would indicate that I am 4 degrees retarded at idle, and may be my issue.
Also, at idle the timing mark seemed to dance around just a little bit. Less then a degree to be sure, never out of sight. At higher RPM, it was very steady.


Zach

Curious... what exactly did you rewire that gave such an initial improvement? Just took the ballast resistor out? Or was there more?

I just took out the ballast resistor. After reading the instructions I kept the resister in line from the ignition on wire to the coil +. But I took the resister out of the circuit entirely from the coil to the dizzy. Had to crimp on a new end to do this.

The difference in performance was night and day from this 30 minutes of work.

Zach

Sounds like you're advance is set to 20 degrees. I've heard the proper is 16 degrees advance, 12 it idle, 28 all the way in?

Yes. I need to reset the static time. I am really hopeful that this will solve all of my sputtering issues, and I can get back to the real test of finding the best jetting for my motor. I am guessing that when I fix my ignition, all my current jetting info is going to need to be re-examined.

Zach

I FINALLY fixed my static time.

I used the 16 degree key to set timing. That was kind of a chore, and I can see how the PO goofed it. Its probably easier with the dizzy out of the car, but I was being stubborn. It seems like you need two keys to do it, or one key and a lock to keep the dizzy in place while you torque down the set screws.

I retimed the car and extra initial advance certainly helped, but at idle I can still hear the car missing.

Cyl 1 is a metronome. It never misses.
Cyl 2 had an occasional miss. 10 missfired over the course of a minute.
Cyl 3 was missing often. Over my 60 second count, it missed enough that I lost count. I would guess that 1 of every 10 beats it missed.
Cyl 4 was missing too. More then Cyl 2 and less then Cyl 3.

I am going to try a valve adjustment maybe Friday... When in doubt, check the basics. But I don't expect to find any surprises there from when I set it in the spring.

If that does not solve the issue, I am going to move to a bigger coil then the blue one.

The good news if that during the 1/2 an hour or so that I was dicking with the car after setting the timing, it did not try and die once. That is an improvement. But I need to get those misfires under control.

Zach

I am running a 2056 w/ delorto carbs and a mallory distributor.

I put a Pertronix II kit in my mallory distributor and am running the Pertonix .6 ohm coil. The car starts and idles better with the .6 ohm coil. I ran it for a while with points and a resistor on the coil but you can notice a big difference without the resistor.

Are you sure your miss isn't coming from a bad cap or rotor?

My mallory is already electronic - no points.

Is there a way to test the cap and rotor? They don't look damaged...

Zach

A Pertronix II will work with a .6 ohm coil, a Unilite won't tolerate that. If you have to run a resistor why upgrade the coil.

If the cap is real bad you can see stray arcing if you look at the distributor with the car running in the dark.