Thursday, July 1, 2010

Readying for Another Roadtrip

A few weeks ago, the car developed a pretty serious misfire and idled like a drag car. I mean that in the worst possible way. Every symptom felt like a timing mishap, which meant that my distributorless ignition system would have to have a fault somewhere.

So, Jay and I dove in.

First, Jay rewired the entire EDIS harness. I originally wired it in another car and the harness looked like a third grader's science project. Jay did a great job replacing it and, though I'm glad that it's really solid now, the car retained it's Rain Man-esque stutter. After buying a new coil pack, we again saw no change.

Finally, we noticed that the clear fuel filter had about a teaspoon of bottom-of-the-tank rust. After some advice that a lean condition can cause a backfire, Jay pulled the top off of the carb and gave the jets a quick cleaning. Instant improvement. I ordered a rebuild kit for the carb and cleaned the whole thing out this afternoon. The result is that the car runs as it should; smooooooothly. I can only imagine how electronic fuel injection will run. Stay tuned for that.

It's good to know that the electronic distributorless ignition system (EDIS) hasn't skipped a beat in three years of operation. Even with a carburetor, it's really worth running.

UPDATE: Roadtrip Fail.

About 20 minutes into a roadtrip to Wisconsin, the car began overheating and running rough again. I cleaned the carb twice before conceding defeat and packing everything into the Toyota. I am currently working with a few local guys to root out the problem.

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