Thank you for your offer to send any manuals you might have. Drivers, workshop, parts, whatever. I have none today and anything you care to send is appreciated. My email address is
rich@odi.net.
Vin is 3066 and was owned by John Schieffelin in Mass. I bought the car 4 years ago and it has been at Mike Decola's shop being "restored" since. He is supposed to be one of the best guys on Bristol Engines. I just got the car moved out to my home in the SF Bay area last week. The car does not run well, has little power until it hits >3K RPM. A real flat spot in the lower end along with spitting and coughing. I checked the Dwell and it was 24 degrees, a bit low considering a 6 cylinder should be in the low 30's. Upon acceleration the dwell moved to over 30, but was inconsistent, clearly indicating either a point wear issue or distributor bushings. In checking the points, they are new, but I can physically move the distributor shaft and "adjust" the points from about -.016" to over 0.024". Point gap seemed too high even with the worn bushings, so I adjusted it down a bit to 0.012"- 0.016", and the engine ran better, but not well. I am thinking a quick resolution might be to put in a set of Pertronix point replacements that should not be affected by the bushings. The correct way would be have the bushing replaced, but that will take time. May do that later once I get the car running well enough and solve what I think might be a jetting problem. Any thoughts?
As for the timing. I am thinking I need to check both the dynamic timing at idle and at 3K RPM. Static always seems to be a few degrees off when set against dynamic, strobe timing. I read somewhere that at 3K RPM we should see 30 degrees. Not knowing the timing at idle, I cannot check that the distributor is allowing for the full advance curve. Any experience with this? Are there any specs out there on the AB engine?
Looking at the carburetors, do you know if the idle mix is the correct adjustment to make for lean low and mid end? Or is there an intermediate jet? I pulled the plugs out after taking a 10 mile drive at high speed. They all looked slightly lean, but reasonably consistent. Kind-of makes me think that either we have an ignition problem, or maybe some plugged low or intermediate jet, since the high speed seems consistent. I want to lock down the ignition issues first before I start tearing into the carbs.
Thanks again for your comments and support. Regards, Rich