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).
Ignition system misfires, discussing distributor wiring, coil placement, and spark plug types.
| Identifier | WestWitteringFiles\D\October1919\ Scan33 | |
| Date | 24th October 1919 | |
| Contd. -5- EFC10/T24.10.19. of the distributor direct instead of having to pass through the earthed metal tube through which the six distributing wires pass. Undoubtedly this causes a reduction in the number of mis-fires. A still further reduction is caused by the use of a coil placed quite near to the distributor. This we have done experimentally on the road and there can be no doubt of the result. (4) There is no doubt that the sparking plugs are partly responsible for the missing, as, by changing these to Bosch plugs, we were able to absolutely cure a chassis which was very nearly cured by other changes. If ignition conditions are bad as regards 1, 2, and 3, and either one of these is improved as already explained, a considerable improvement results in the ignition. Each one by itself seems to have a similar amount of effect. When, however, two of these conditions are right and one is wrong, the rectification of the remaining one has not so much to work on and therefore the difference due to it is not so apparent. It would appear that the missing fire which we are experiencing is due to some sort of weakness in the coil. We do not by this mean a weakness of stored energy but rather a weakness in the insulation of the high tension windings. We do not think there can be any doubt of the coil being right as regards cross sectional area of core, numbers, and gauges of primary and secondary turns. As already explained if we make Contd. | ||