Alfa Pages

[Matthew Kirkcaldie]

Hi all,

I have had some shocking rough idle and hesitation lately - it seems to alter things if I play with the HT leads (seating them more firmly) but it doesn't fix it. I measured the resistances today - 19k-ohm from coil to dizzy, and the individual plug leads were 7, 9, 10 and 10 k-ohm. The former lead sounds like it's on the way out - is that right?

Is there anything I ought to look for in a replacement set? I'm not much interested in expensive "performance" sets, more like the kind of "performance" which involves the engine running correctly.

Cheers,

Matthew.

[bobbber]

I went to a small workshop where they made me up a set...

That way they will fit, and were no more expensive than an "off the shelf" set.

Rob
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Fiat Bravo 165 Sport

[Eddie W]

Mathew
Under 20k should work although 19k is getting to the top limit. If your idle slows down when sitting at the lights etc and you get a slight flat spot when accelerating then I would suggest that you have a float level problem (if carburetted) as the Dellorto floats get heavier over the years with a consequent rise in float level that leads eventually to dribbling from the rear mains at idle. The floats should weigh 10gms and anything much over this will give the symptoms you describe along with loss of economyand power.
Regards Eddie
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A LITTLE FURTHER A LITTLE FASTER

[Matthew Kirkcaldie]

Thanks guys - I think the car is carburetted with twin Webers actually. Adjusting carburettors isn't something I could tackle myself, so I'm going to have it tuned (again). What I'm doing at this stage is trying to eliminate variables, so I replaced the battery (it was non-spec when we bought the car) and the leads are the ones we bought with it three years ago, so I don't know how long they've been on. I figure if the roughness changes after I remove and reconnect the leads, there may be a fault with the leads and hence it's safest to replace them.

That way, when the car gets tuned, I can be sure there is a consistent strong spark, and that should make the tune hold up under different temperature conditions and loads. Sound reasonable? I'm just trying to cut down the possible contributors to roughness and loss of power.

Then again we may have fried yet another ignition module when the car ran hot after the water pump failed. Hooray for Alfa.

[Matthew Kirkcaldie]

I forgot to ask - I can buy Champion red leads at our local K-Mart in a variety of styles, but their model list doesn't include Alfa (includes lots of Fiats, go figure) so I wondered if anyone knows which kit number applies to our favourite 33.