powerspark ducellier

Hi there anyone running power spark kit in ducellier dissy have been told the kit needs the VAC advance disabled don't think it would run well though any ideas cheers Andy

If it's one of these Ducellier Powerspark Electronic Ignition Kit Distributor Ducellier Powerspark Electronic Ignition Kit Distributor [K8] - £28.12 : Electronic Ignition, Home of the Powerspark electronic ignition and electronic distributor I think you just fit it in place of the points. It doesn't do anything fancy about timing just the dwell so you leave the mechanical and vacuum advance as they were.

Cheers for that will see how it goes

Yep just leave the vacuum advance as it is I'm running that kit on a ducellier no problems

Who told you that? It would not advance properly? Fit and off you go.

Runs sweet now thanks guys. was so sick of crap quality points and condensers!

you only disable the advance if u use the additional black box containing ignition maps, just done my mates mini which uses the same hall effect pickup running through an aldon amethyst box which is mapped to suit, the vacumn advance is plugged and mechanical advance fixed with a blob of weld .. the box controls it all..... my triumph uses the normal advance with the powerspark hall sensor n pick up fitted

cheers steve

thanks steve have just done a good run with the K8 kit, goes well need to tune with strobe light, any ideas what advance i should have at 2500 3000 rpm

The engine tuning data on page 05-1 of the workshop manual give a table of mechanical advance figures (these are on top of whatever advance you have set). However, I've found newer distributors tend to have a different curve with no mech advance before 1000rpm - I suspect this is to avoid hunting when the idle is set higher for pollution controlled vehicles which are set to idle at around 800-900rpm.

The table is:

450rpm - no advance
600 - 0-4
900 - 4-12
1200 12-16
2500 22-26
3500 30-34
4500 38-42

That is with the vacuum line off. I run with about 8-12 degrees on top of that which is maybe a bit aggressive. It does pink like that on 95 unleaded at 12+, so I tend to run 98 which seems to run nicer and faster. If you're using lead replacement, octane boost you may be able to get more or less.

I'd have a play with the gun and see what advance curve you have and plot it out on graph paper and compare with the table above. If it's miles out you may need to strip down and re-grease the weights in the dissy.

I found my NOS Lucas 45D was close but not identical to the curve above the difference being that it was more of a straight line. I ended up removing the lighter spring and stretching it a bit to get a more aggressive ramp up at lower revs.

What you can get away with and what works best will depend on how good or bad your compression is, how your carb is set up and what carb you have (among other things: vacuum advance, compression ratio, how much build up on piston crowns/head).

I'd start at about 4 degrees advanced and then keep advancing in 2 degree increments until you start to experience pinking - you'll hear this as a rattling from the engine when under medium load (say 4th gear at about 30-40mph pulling up a gentle hill with your foot down). When you start to hear it back the timing off a degree or two.

The curves in the workshop book are assuming of course that you're running on 3* petrol...

I'm starting to collect together parts to make a data logging system to monitor mixture, rpms, vacuum, acceleration, speed, engine knock and distance with a smart phone and a microcontroller.

Tuning engines is addictive, especially ones like the Landy petrol which has lots of scope for improvement from stock. If I get time between rebuilding my 109, moving house, working and bringing up a baby I'm going to have a go at designing and building my own electronic ignition system just for the jollies!

Good luck and let us know your experiences, it will be interesting to see how yours pans out.

PS: I wouldn't bother with fancy air filters, I ran a racing cone filter for a while because my new carb didn't fit the pipe work. I went back to the oil-bath. Less hassle, a lot quieter and I couldn't measure any difference in time on a 1/4mile standing start.

thanks dom im running a 5mb 2.286l with the 32/34 dtml weber from a 110 in a 73, 88 its quite zippy have just tuned it to run without pinking under load i have the owners manual but theres no good info in there about the dwell or mechanical advance ajustment on the ducellier dissy its not pinking but still runs on somtimes when turning off, anyone have an diagram of the dissy they could share cheers andy

Mech advance adjustment involves removing the contacts plate from the dissy and stretching the springs or replacing them with more or less stiff ones.

The stretching is to alter when the second spring kicks in, stronger springs will reduce the slope of the advance curve,...its quite fiddly and involved and probably not worth a lot, however if your springs are old and floppy they may allow too much advance at high revs meaning you have to back it off too much to get nice tractability at low revs.

The run on is probably not much to do with your timing, unless its very retarded and overheating the exhaust valves. It's more likely just a hot spot in the head somewhere causing it to diesel (i.e. run without a spark).

Depending on the model of DMTL it may have an anti run-on valve which cuts the idle jet when the ignition goes off. You can check whether its burnt out by removing the wire with the ignition on but engine off there should be a clearly audible clack as it opens and shuts.

There are two valves one on the side and one at the front near the inlet, its not the one near the inlet - that's the vent valve which allows the float bowl to vent when the ignition is off. It's on the side near the accelerator pump diaphragm IIRC

If the valve doesn't work then it might just need a wipe, a bit of muck is enough to hold it open. If it is working and sealing but still running on then it would indicate a problem with your idle mixture, if idle mixture is too lean or way too rich you may have the throttle stop set to far open which will cause run on. Also check that the choke cable is returning fully as that can crack the throttle open enough to defeat the run on valve.

Other thing to quickly check is make sure that both the first and second throttles are snapping shut, if the second one is wedged by muck it can also cause run on as that is not affected by the run on valve.

The other thing to check is that the needle valve is closing properly in the float chamber if that is not sealing then you can get overspill of fuel.

D

PS: I have a DMTL manual scan here if you'd like a copy

I've just fitted one of these kits to a Ducellier distributor - and it definitely doesn't use the vac advance. You don't need to blank it or anything, it just doesn't do anything - but it makes sense to replumb the vac to remove it, since it removes a potential source of leaks.

The Powerspark base just fits to the static baseplate of the distributor, it doesn't go anywhere near the pivot point, which is the only bit moved by the vac.

Sausage - my '80 3brg has an anti-run-on solenoid on the carb, wired to the +ve on the coil. I wonder if somebody's disconnected and removed that on yours, and blanked the hole it screws into? I think they just found every bit of "anti-pollution" guff they could find in the factory and threw it at mine. I've removed, binned and blanked the EGR...

That doesn't sound right to me. I've fitted these to both Ducelier and Lucas and the vac advance still works. If you put it together and suck hard on the tube it should move. Without the vac advance you'll find that you lose some tractability at small throttle opening and get a bit of popping on the overrun.

dominicbeesley said:

That doesn't sound right to me. I've fitted these to both Ducelier and Lucas and the vac advance still works. If you put it together and suck hard on the tube it should move. Without the vac advance you'll find that you lose some tractability at small throttle opening and get a bit of popping on the overrun.

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It doesn't sit anywhere near anything that moves with the vac.

The vac just moves a small plate, which has the movable pivot for the points. There's no way the Powerspark doofus will sit there - but it sits perfectly the other side of the distributor baseplate.

I'll take a pic in the AM, if I remember...

Fair enough - I think there may be two ducellier powerspark kits, one that does vac and one that doesn't. The one I did looked like this one Hot-Spark 4-cylinder ignition kit for Ducellier Distributors for Citroen, Peugeot, Renault, Simca, DAF, Alfa-Romeo with an extra pivot from the vac - maybe yours doesn't have that? Admittedly it wasn't for my motor and was someone else's bitsa which may have got the dissy transplanted from some other random motor...it worked well in the end though.

I'd be loath to give up vacuum advance as it does seem to work - I ran without by accident for a while and wondered why it felt so lazy...forgetting that I'd blocked it off when setting the timing.

dominicbeesley said:

Fair enough - I think there may be two ducellier powerspark kits, one that does vac and one that doesn't. The one I did looked like this one Hot-Spark 4-cylinder ignition kit for Ducellier Distributors for Citroen, Peugeot, Renault, Simca, DAF, Alfa-Romeo with an extra pivot from the vac - maybe yours doesn't have that? Admittedly it wasn't for my motor and was someone else's bitsa which may have got the dissy transplanted from some other random motor...it worked well in the end though.

I'd be loath to give up vacuum advance as it does seem to work - I ran without by accident for a while and wondered why it felt so lazy...forgetting that I'd blocked it off when setting the timing.

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Those HotSpark images are almost an exact mirror-image of my distributor!

My kit was this one :-
Land Rover Powerspark Electronic Ignition Kit Ducellier Distributor Land Rover Ducellier Ignition Kit [K8] - £28.12 : Electronic Ignition, Home of the Powerspark electronic ignition and electronic distributor



The red electronics doofy needs to be unscrewed from the base plate, as the fixing screw is underneath it - that goes into the points adjustment screw hole, with the RH hole (mine's a notch) locating on the little boss that the fixed point slides on. The other end tucks under the plastic locating piece for the moving point's spring. The main PITA fitting was that there was a small spring-loaded plastic piece pushing against the main distributor spindle - and that had to be removed, which meant removing the base plate from the distrib. Which, at least, meant it was easy to put the TEEEEEENY allen screws back in to hold the red electronics doofy onto the base plate, without dropping them into a black hole.

Mine had two female spades, and about three inches too little wire to actually reach the coil (which needed one male and one female, and one extra terminal)... so there's very likely to be a small amount of wiring modification required.

As soon as I turned the key, the difference was night and day. But, then, the points on mine were history. The fixed point is so badly eroded, the top part is totally gone in one place, with the lower part almost back to the bracket. I'm surprised it ran at all.

thanks for all the replys to my original post i was sent the wrong kit initally and it had a wired sensor onto the pick up that replaced the sliding contact point and was for a fiat or lancier or similar it was a cock up and ran for about 200 miles before the wires rubbed through and went up in smoke this was where the confusion reguarding the vacume advance was.i now have the correct kit and all has been well for 1000 miles runs great and economy is better then ever i still keep points and condenser in tool kit just in case!

is just a case of removing points and putting the Powerspark unit where the points were or is there more to remove on the base plate ie little plastic piece under where the point were Thanks

sausage said:

thanks for all the replys to my original post i was sent the wrong kit initally and it had a wired sensor onto the pick up that replaced the sliding contact point and was for a fiat or lancier or similar it was a cock up and ran for about 200 miles before the wires rubbed through and went up in smoke this was where the confusion reguarding the vacume advance was.i now have the correct kit and all has been well for 1000 miles runs great and economy is better then ever i still keep points and condenser in tool kit just in case!

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Hi - thinking of doing an electronic conversion on a ducellier dizzy - dame set up as you. Which kit did you use in the end and does the vac work or not?

cheers

tom

thspeller said:

Hi - thinking of doing an electronic conversion on a ducellier dizzy - dame set up as you. Which kit did you use in the end and does the vac work or not?

cheers

tom

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Hi Tom, funnily enough I was looking on here for some answers to installation issues.

I have just installed the powerspark K8 kit. Despite what others before have said, the vacuum toothed CAM had to be removed from my distributor to fit the collar.

I bought this kit for a Series 3 I am rebuilding as I have already been using one happily on my Series 1 for several years with success, moch better than points which wore out rapidly.

Finally after 3 years I have fired up the 88 for the first time, though I need to get the timing set now for it to idle.

https://blog.simonbbc.com/quick-loo...utors-fitted-to-minis-metros-and-land-rovers/