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British BriefsBritish Car Club Midlands CentreNovember 2009

www.bccmc.com

Editor (Briefs/Marque) Sonya S Stewart

sssjag@sc.rr.com

Web Master Steve Ratcliffe

BCCMC1@gmail.com

OFFICERS 2009

President – Fred DeShong 755-0368fdeshong@sc.rr.comVice President - Todd Smith 397-5556alpine1963@aol.comSecretary – Betty DeShong 755-0368bett090@sc.rr.com Treasurer – Edith Hylton 796-0199egablehylton@earthlink.netSocial Secretary – Mike Speer 419-4599mspeer1624@aol.comMarquis Secretaries:Austin Healey – Tony Stakis 790-0393astakis@sc.rr.com Jaguar – Brad Wik 345-7071bwik2@sc.rr.comMG – Ron Jarosz 408-0870RonJtheMGGuy@aol.com Triumph – Bob Blundy 957-8566ellenblundy@atlantic.net Sunbeam – Todd Smith (above)Other – Jocelyn Davis 699-8968brandon1409@peoplepc.com

BREAKFAST 10/03/09

We had almost 50 members and guests attending: Dave and Jeni Behning, Walt andIris Brown,Ray Burns and Susan Kaiser, Lonnie Caughman, Dave and Jo Davis, Steve andMargaret De Groat and granddaughter Derrick Le Master, Fred and Betty DeShong,Brad Fowler, Eric and Bonnie Gibeaut and Kristen Frosch and Gavin Rondeau, Rick andCookie Hallman, Forest and Cheryl Haynes, Heath Honeycutt, Ron and Jerri Jarosz, Jeff and Pam Jones, Hal Kievlan and Gail Bragg, Ron Kuebler, George McKown, Cecil andConnie Myers and son-in-law Tony Cox, Steve and Glenda Noble, Chris and BrendaPowell, Lewis and Lois Rodgers, Pat Stakis, Sonya Stewart, Eric and Ross Szendrei,Vance and Robin Young. There were three other guests: Rick Gunter with a 1974 AustinMini and his grandson Joshua Gantt and Clyde Frasier with an Austin Healey Sprite.Regular members that were missing and accounted for were Tony Stakis (in Greece),Wally Stewart (in Chattanooga), Mike and Marcie Speer (on a cruise) and Charley andEdith Hylton (on a bus in Colorado). Steve Ratcliffe (in Washington DC) and MadellDobrushin (in Pittsburgh, Pa.).

Parade of Cars

IGNITION TIMING IN OUR CARS

After a piston in the TR7 Spider disintegrated, an event that was likely the result of detonation, I decided thatit might be prudent to do some homework on the issue of ignition timing before the engine ran again. After some initial reading and talking around the subject of ignition timing, the best advice came from JimHoneycutt of Honeycutt Machine, who repaired the head and the block - “There’s a lot of b.s. out there abouttiming.” And was he right. So I decided to dig deeper, and here is a synopsis of what I found out.Most of us already know this stuff, but anyway first with some basics. The combustion process in thecylinders of an internal combustion engine takes place at a fairly constant rate. However as engine rpmsincrease, the ignition spark has to occur earlier and earlier in the combustion stroke so that the pressure wavegenerated by the combustion process can keep up with the piston as it travels down the bore. This is knownas ignition advance and is controlled by the distributor. If the spark doesn’t occur at the optimum time, theresult can be loss of power along with poor idling, misfiring at higher rpms and other maladies. If the spark occurs seriously too early, then the result is detonation or ‘pinking’ which destroyed my piston rings. The basic problem in older cars is that the formulation of gasoline has changed drastically since many of our carswere built. The tetra ethyl lead in the old leaded gasoline did a number of things, but also acted as a flameretardant, which slowed the rate of combustion. Modern unleaded gas contains additives that increase flamespeed to improve emissions. The net result is that less ignition advance is required with modern gas thanwith the original leaded gas.In our engines, the spark is initiated by the distributor which also controls the rate of spark advance over therpm range. Ignition advance is controlled by the distributor in two ways. There is a certain amount of initial,or static, ignition advance which is set at an idle speed typically around 800 rpm and is usually around 10

before top dead center (BTDC) on the combustion stroke of a four cycle engine. This is easily adjustable bymanually rotating the distributor. Then there is the centrifugal advance mechanism inside the distributor

which gradually advances the spark advance by an additional 20

or 30

BTDC as the rpms increase by amechanical mechanism that consists of springs and weights. The amount of mechanical advance wasoriginally determined by the manufacturer by trial-and-error to give the optimum performance for thegasoline that was available at the time, and is not easily adjustable. In addition, there is usually a vacuumcanister on most distributors which advances the spark an additional 10

or so, and is purely an economydevice for highway cruising conditions. The distributors in our cars can therefore have too much mechanicalignition advance for modern gasoline which can cause pinking. There is also the age factor, where after 30or 40 years of abuse, the springs have become tired and stretch out prematurely as the engine revs up andcompound the excessive ignition advance problem. Now for reality. The problem is not as bad as it sounds and only certain engines may be susceptible. Thedistributor manufacturers typically set a very conservative advance rate to avoid possible damage under any possible operating conditions. Also in the 1970's, the car manufacturers battled emission regulations by amultitude of techniques including lowering compression ratios and reducing timing advance curves whichalleviates the situation. To summarize then, if you have a standard 1970s medium performance car that wasdesigned for unleaded gas, such as an MGB or a TR6, it’s almost certainly OK, unless you are experiencing pinking problems in the middle rpm range. However if you have a 1960s or earlier high performance enginee.g. MGA twin cam or Lotus twin cam, that was intended for unleaded gas, or a tweaked later engine with ahigh lift cam, raised compression ratio, exhaust headers etc, then you might want to look into having thedistributor re-curved to suit modern gas. There are a number of shops out there that will do this.To get back to the TR7 Spider timing, the Sprint engine was an early 1970s engine designed for leaded gas,then in use in Europe, so clearly some distributor mods were in order. At the same time Brad Wik wasexperiencing some intransigent issues with his MGC (poor idle, high speed misfires and mid range pinking,even on 93 octane gas). Some research indicated that the MGC had been sold by the factory with anincorrect distributor which had been the subject of a recall in England, but the notice had probably not madeit out to the Colonies. Both distributors were modified to reduce the total mechanical ignition advance andthe advance rate curve. The Spider’s total mechanical advance was reduced by about 20% and the MGCs bya staggering 35%. The result has made a large contribution to improving the drivability both cars.

Bob Blundy

SONIC

October 8

was a beautiful evening for British Cars and friends: Hal & Barb Ewing andgrandson Layton, Chris & Brenda Powell, Steve & Margaret DeGroat, Charley & EdithHylton, Walt & Iris Brown, Tom & Diane Caine, Tony & Pat Stakis, Ray Burns & SusanKaiser, Sonya Stewart and Fred & Betty DeShong