308 front bank backfires/pops

Thanks for the reply. I've been following a lot of posts here since I got the car and appreciate everyone's insight. Since I got the car it's progressed really well

She has 99k miles and when I got her I had no records or anything and hadn't been running in three years.. Story has gotten better and she had a total engine out top end at 85k... Once I cleaned out tanks, replaced fuel lines, spark plugs and some cv boots drivers side were both bad. turned crank by hand and then fired her up..

the car runs great but blew 1200 on the hydrocarbons trying to pass arizona smog. From reading around here and mechanics helping me, diagnoses was troubleshoot ignition/timing/spark and then move on to carbs.. A parts guy at Rutlands said my cats are probably fried.. but it's 2k to replace them so that's gotta wait..

Since the caps were 225 each and looked passable after cleaning, I'm going with new points. both R1 and R2 are in place and microswitch all operating so I'm getting all four sets of points, rotors, the single wire condensers only, since the double wire ones that run to the microswitch aren't available/ and doing the plug wire easy conversion to red accel 5040R wires. I've got a friend with a machine shop where the car is having these issues addresed. and he has a distributor machine, So I'm printing off your reply to show him. Thanks a lot for the detailed response. This is my first Ferrari after many years of wanting one and the emotions have gone from elation to despair and back as I've solved and tackled different problems. will advise on how the car runs after above work and thanks again.
Not trying to hijack thread, Thanks to Aaron for starting thread
ttt

Rok

 

Took them out...you were right ...very easy to do..ordered new points, putting it on distributor machine with new points tomorrow..both R1 and R2 are intact so leaving it stock for now .. havn't tested microswitch yet but appears to be working...

will R&R distributors, wires, and then check for smog again

this quest for ignition originated when I failed AZ emmisions by blowing 1200 on the hydrocarbons....

front right carb has started weaping gas too....

Oh the joys of four carbs, two distributors, and a prancing horse on the hood..!!!!.............

gotta love the way it drives though...
even makes an old drag racer smile..

Rok

 

Going to pull both and clean and replace...

thanks for reply

 

Does anyone know if these cars will pass smog without the retard points? It seems a waste of time to install them and blow money on the distributor machine labor if it can pass without them. Since I reworked one of my distributors to place both banks points inside, the car runs better than it ever did.

I know a few have claimed to pass California smog with a 77 no cat car, breaking below the California 200 ppm spec, by retarding timing and leaning it way out on the mix screws, but I dont know if they had retard points or some other type of ignition.

 

Mine passed on single set of points........we had the two distributors ovehauled and made sure all ignition was working properly.

The shop gas analyzer was better than the State's! But we knew where we were going in..no special "lean settings" or tricks...left the motor HOT before the test, that did it.

Exempt now here, at 25 years old.....

 

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=125813


Let me just add something here, because I guess my idea didnt go over so great. I grew up with points cars. Until electronic ignition became popular, cars seldom just died by the side of the road because of an ignition problem. They might run like crap, and you might limp in somewhere, but they still normally didnt just die. Of those few cars that did konk out, a simple readjustment of the points with a match book cover usually had it running again, good enough to get you easily another 100 miles or more until you could get it right. But I have had more electronic ignition system cars die on me in the last 30 years than I can count. You dont fix them by the side of the road with a screwdriver and a match book cover, you replace parts.

My third ever ride in a Ferrari, a 308 QV, ended with the car losing a bank of cylinders 200 miles from home. Flat bed arrived and hauled it away while we found alternative forms of transportation back home. The owner had to make three trips back and forth to finally solve the problem, and it cost almost $1000 in parts. You will not find any parts for almost any car made, much less a Ferrari, on a sunday afternoon just about anywhere. Points ignition would not have stranded us like that. That is just a plain fact. They do wear, they do require maintenence, but they are so well designed and so well made that they just dont normally fail suddenly. And its sure not hard to carry a spare set with just in case, and they are lots cheaper than ANY electronic component. Once cleaned, adjusted, and setup on the car, a points distributor is almost guaranteed to run several thousand miles without fail. You could trust your life on it, at least much more than any black box.

What I did was basically turn a dual point US distributor into a twin ignition Euro type distributor, and you use the front distributor to only carry the secondary ignition. The second points set in the rear distributor runs the forward bank coil. Now only one advance mechanism runs both banks, so both fire equally across the entire rpm range. You can remove the points cam and advance wieghts from the front distributor and keep them for spares. Or, you could alter the other distributor the same way, have it all set up so it will run, and disconnect the wires and run off the other distributor. In the case of a problem, you could simply swap wires to the other distributor and be running. I have been reading more, and understand that Rolls Royce also didnt swap over to electronic ignition until 1976 or so. But that while they ran points, the cars had a spare coil mounted next to the main, with a spare condensor mounted on the distributor. Just in case, I assume. I really hate cars I cant make run out in Timbuctoo.

 

Great work, man! It's great when it turns out to be something simple.

 

Matto that post was back in 2006. I have done the same many times.