I have another post going about converting my 56 T-Bird to 57 carb/distributor etc. In the interim, I would like to figure out some of my issues with the present setup. I put an Ignitor 1 in the car about a year and a half ago. Set it up with a Flame Thrower coil and eliminated the ballast resistor. As a result of the coil change, I also opened the spark plug gap up as recommended. I set the timing and the car ran smoothly. However, I sensed that the car seemd to lack power.



Started checking things out and found that I wasn't getting advance due to leaky diaphragms in the vacuum advance in the distributor. Replaced this unit. That's where my real problems start... Now I am having a lot of problems with the timing. A friend of mine took a whack at setting the timing with some sort of new computerized system. He told me that he set it up and came back and checked it again later and it was off 20 degrees. I drove it home and it ran poorly... Worse than before the vacuum advance was fixed.



I checked the timing with my old trusty Craftsman inductive light and it was at least 20 degrees retarded. I set it for a very slight advance and it idled and ran very well... Albeit with a very slight hesitation and just a touch of a ping on really heavy acceleration. Power was much improved as well. Drove the car back and forth to work the next day and it became progressively worse once again. The pinging became heavier and the idle once again became rough. Put the light on it again and this time it was at least 20% advanced!



My friend (who owns a repair shop and is highly experienced) says that he has seen similar problems with a small percentage of Ignitors that he has installed over the years. It would certainly seem to be more than just a coincidence that the timing issue popped up when the vacuum advance was fixed. Looking this up on the internet, I'm seeing a lot of posts in numerous forums about similar issues with Ignitors. Anyone with any specific experience with Y blocks and Load O Matics and how to rectify the problem? I would love to hear from you.

JerseyJim