I've a 2litre Pinto in my car with a Newman fast road cam,bike carbs and megajolt ignition. The engine is difficult to start from cold and I'm wondering whether I've got the static (or cranking) advance set right. It's at 14 degrees at present but has been at 12. I've noticed that whilst turning the engine over on the starter every 3rd or 4th turn sounds really slow as if battery is going flat, which having read up on web could be what's referred to as kickback indicating too much static advance? Any advice from anyone with more knowledge on this subject would be massively appreciated
Thanks
Ian

http://www.rhocar.org/index.php?s=101e27b02877cdda182130a2239d41f1&showtopic=28082&#entry213321

I would say bring it down to 10, if not 8, that is if the megajolt has a cranking advance setting, then once running the idle advance will kick in.

Retard the iginition to 7 deg BTDC and see what happens. You will probably find the that 10 deg BTDC will be fine but kicking back occurs as soon as you get beyond 12 degrees.



You can also check the cranking voltage, simple check the battery voltage when you turn the engine over on the starter. Under normal conditions you should see about 10.5v when cranking the engine.


[Edited on 25/3/15 by britishtrident]

I had the same issues (also have a Newman cam and bike carbs). I bought a new battery but no joy. My static timing was 10 deg, so not too far advanced, but struggled if below 5 deg C outside.

I could have retarded my ignition, but this would have affected full advance as I use a dizzy (should be about 38 deg), engine response and power. Instead, I have just fitted a high torque starter, which was a real bargain. Much smaller and almost half the weight, it made a real difference to starting:

eBay 1.4kW starter

As others have said, if you have megajolt set the ignition timing whilst cranking to something much closer to TDC.


Good luck, and keep the pinto alive

Beauty of Megajolt is that you can set a cranking advance then an idle advance in the first 2 Rev sites then set the rest as you like as it will extrapolate between large rev differences