ignition problems

[arensal]

Hello

2 years ago my Stag started cutting off completely while driving on a very warm summer day. After some waiting I could restart the car again but I was driving with "hickups" whenever I had to accelerate on a up hill track. It took several weeks before my mecanic "found" the problem. In the meantime, coil, lumenition and battery were changed and the imobilizer was taken out of the electrical circuit. The problem never occured again.

A month ago, I had a hot starting problem which at that moment I thought had to do with the carburetters overfueling. The hot starting problem continued whenever I had to restart the car after a (very) short drive. I then generally open the bonnet and let things cool down for a moment and make time for the fuel to evaporate. (I think I smell fuel when opening the bonnet)

A week ago the ignition stopped again on the highway. It was not very warm and I only had done some 15 miles. Restarted the car 10 min later and managed to get home without further problems.

After reading on the forum I decided to move the lumenition module to the inside of the car as the thing only operates (according to the manual) to up to 85 C.

Today I went for a test and I did 150miles on the higway without problems. After getting off the highway the car cut off on a red light. I opended the bonnet for a moment and managed to start the car after 2 minutes. 5 minutes later a had a complete cut off again. I had to wait 5 minutes this time to be able to restart.
I then went on the first parking and decided to move the coil which was extremely hot away from the V and fix it on the side of the engine compartment. I then got back home (150 miles) without any further trouble. (the temp of the coild seemed ok)

I was supposed to go on holiday with the stag on thursday but I am seriously reconsidering because of these reliability issues.

Is there any way I can stress-test the ignition as the cut off seem to happen randomly or is there anybody out there with some helpful advise.

Thanks in advance,

Alexander

[73stagman]

a few people on here seem to behaving issues with hot coils. The standard mount is not helpful if the coils are showing up a temp issue so having moved it you need to give it time to see if it gets any better.
The best test is to drive it and see.

[arensal]

Thanks Neil,

The lumenition technical bulletins states this article at the very end :

3.
There is a possibility that the optical switch is failing. If so, there is likely to be a very definite pattern to the intermittency which will be as follows:
The ignition system works perfectly when the engine is cold but misfires or stalls as the optical switch is heated by the rising engine temperature. If the engine is stopped and left to cool for a few minutes (also cooling the optical switch) the engine will start and run perfectly but fail again a few minutes later when the optical switch heats up and so on. No repairs can be made to Optical Switches and replacement will be necessary.
If the optical switch is currently connected to a Mk16 power module (or an earlier version, see
above for identification) a replacement optical switch is not available and a complete
replacement Optronic system will be required.

Does this now mean that the optical swith, once it has failed, starts slowly dying or does this mean that once you get everything out of the head there is a chance that the switch becomes reliable again? Is there any common way of cooling the distributor?

I have the same question with the coil : Is a coil that start having trouble with overheating behaving normally again once it's put to a cooler place or is there some fatal damage once the stalling starts?

greetings,

Alex

[73stagman]

along with the hot coil there has been some reports of the Lumenition being less than 100% reliable and as far as I know this has to do with the optical version rather than the magnetic type which Lumenition also do. Whether it is the pick up or the box I dont know.

seems like Lumenition know they have a problem with the optical pick up hence the warning and advice note.

A cheaper option is to do away with the Lumenition and use a magnetic system like Powerspark, accuspark, Aldon etc..... you have to be careful of compatibility with your distributor though..

As far as I know as long as the coil stays intact during an overheating cycle, once its cooled down it will function as before. I guess with anything though there will be limits... ie if you overheat everytime you use it it may decide its had enough!

[wilf]

Sounds just like an overheated coil to me, too.

[38rover]

The PO on my car had the lumitron move to inside the car behind the distribution board now I know why I did think it was just to make the car look original

[73stagman]

I have the black box off my Accuspark system in the car as advised by Accuspark even though on their installation video they mount it in the engine bay!

[arensal]

Hello,

Thanks for the feddback everybody!

I already moved the power module of the lumenition inside the car. The warning is about the optical switch which is in the distributor. I have not heard of anybody trying to cool down the distributor and I have trouble believing that I fell 2 times in 2years on one of those "...can be due to a failing optical switch but please be aware this is not a common problem !" --> technical bulletin again.

I can just hope that by moving the coil away the thing has a slightly less hot environnement and that it is actually the coil going nuts because of that heat in the V. I absolutely love my stag but the guy from BL being responsible for putting the coil (and the water pump!!!) in the V should burn in hell (or in a V ;-) )

Since I did not have issues anymore after having moved the coil away I'll keep on testing and if things keep failing I'm going the 123 route or even back to a point system. Those at least can be fixed on the road!

cheers,

Alex

[steve.n]

Alex, I have had this very same issue over the last few days, search "coil" & you will find some very interesting stuff. I have had two coil failures now, you will find that if the coil has overheated it will be permanently damaged & unreliable. Good luck and have faith in your car! By the way my lumenition module has been located inside the car for twenty two years & is now 26 years old! Still soldiering on.

[arensal]

still been busy soriting out my ignition problems....

Because I can't beleive that I have killed 2 lumenitions within 2 years I started rewiering erverything again according to the book. I had to sort out some poor cable fixing and realized that my (unlabeled) coil had been running without ballast resistor and without the "cold startting circuit".

In my attempt to get things right I now connected the wire from the tacho (white grey) and the violet wire from the lumenition module to the neg coil side and a constant 12v supply with ballast resistor to the positive side. The supply I use is a red cable from the inerta switch whis seems to have been fitted by a previous owner. The same cable supplies power to the lumenition module

I am now looking for the a cable that provides a 12V supply when the ignition key is turned in order to start the car.

Along with the tacho cable (white/grey) I found 2 other wires which were not connected to anything. Their colour is white to while/yellow (the colours have become undeterminable with time) and seems to be the saame for both cables. One of them provides a 12V supply when the ignition is switched on and on the other one I don't seem to have any electricity at all.
On steering colum on the ignition I see a white/purple, a red red and a brown cable leaving but I am unable to see where they are going to.

I have 2 questions :

Is there another source I could use for 12V supply when turning the key?

Should I rather use the constant 12V supply coming along with the tachocable and the dead cable then taking the 12V from the inerta swith? The same wire actually provides the electricity to the lumention module.

Thanks in advance,

Alex