From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Road test of chassis 1.EX focusing on battery ignition performance after alterations.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 33\3\ Scan033 | |
| Date | 4th November 1919 | |
| Copy to Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} from EN. copy. (7th.Nov. 1919) To R.{Sir Henry Royce} from E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} c. to CJ. c. to BN.{W.O. Bentley / Mr Barrington} c. to FN. X.1812/E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} (crossed out) X 3129 RE CHASSIS 1.EX. E2/04.11.19. After the alterations to the battery ignition had been carried out at West WitteringHenry Royce's home town, I drove this car to London for delivery to Derby, in accordance with your instructions, having first, before starting, fitted two porcelain plugs into cylinders 3 and 4 on the battery circuit. One of the plugs was a Lodge and the other a Charron. The special points to be observed were:- (1) Misfiring on the battery ignition. (2) Slow running. (3) The condition of Battery Plugs 3 and 4. As soon as the car was thoroughly warm, I tried accelerating from slow speed on full throttle many times with different carburetter settings. Misfires could not be obtained except by weakening the mixture to one notch from the end of the quadrant, shewing that the ignition was functioning quite regularly. After driving through London from South to North, I observed the slow running of the engine with the car standing with battery ignition only, lever retarded and mixture normally rich. There appeared to be noticeable misfiring under these conditions, and the slow running was quite up to the standard pronounced by you as very good in the garage at Wittering. An examination of the porcelain plugs in Nos. 3 and 4 cylinders on the battery ignition shewed the insulators to be perfectly clean and free from carbon, shewing that they had burned themselves clean if at any time carbon had been deposited on them, which we deduce must be so from the dirty condition of the mica plugs examined at Wittering. E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} | ||