Engine trouble - thoughts?

[Merv]

All's well that ends well. I put a new Bosch coil on my 356 and it failed in 5kms and would not even start the car. Back to the old one in the trunk and now I carry a bag of spares with a new coil, points, plugs, belt, volt/amp meter, fuel filter, spare jets, etc., just in case. These are still old cars.

[Cairns888]

Glad you got it sorted mate.

All coil problems I have had work at idle at then play up when they are hot. Strange how yours was OK after revving the car for a while.

Can anyone educate me on this?

[jason]

All's well that ends well. I put a new Bosch coil on my 356 and it failed in 5kms and would not even start the car. Back to the old one in the trunk and now I carry a bag of spares with a new coil, points, plugs, belt, volt/amp meter, fuel filter, spare jets, etc., just in case. These are still old cars.

It's strange that coils seem to fail so often without moving parts. Complete failure is easier to diagnose than an annoying random one. I'm definitely going to stock up on a few parts. I always carry points, but a few extra will also be useful. Might even buy another spare coil. Trouble sometimes comes in threes.

[Fishcop]

Ditch points. I use an optical switch (Crane) inside the dizzy to fire the MSD.

[jason]

Ditch points. I use an optical switch (Crane) inside the dizzy to fire the MSD.

Yes, I've been thinking about that for a while now. One of the reasons I didn't earlier was that I read that points do so little inside an MSD setup that they rarely go wrong. No dwell settings - just basically open / close for timing. However, the insulating pickup bracket that comes from the housing is a little loose, so rather than trying to find one I could just replace everything with an optical switch.

Which one is correct to get?

[Fishcop]

I started out with basic Kettering ignition. I went with the Crane XR700 with 6cyl optical wheel and added a Crane Hi6 ignition.

If you're using MSD you may be better off with a hall-effect (reductor and paddle) set up... They seem pretty well priced and a simple two-wire input to the MSD box.

[Merv]

My 911 has the full MSD package and is pointless... 356s on 6V don't like electronic systems on the dizzy and most people have gone back to points. They are simple really.

[Paul W]

+1 Crane Optical, excellent option

[jason]

Just a quick update to say that I haven't had a problem with cutout since replacing the coil.

Also, I noticed when doing some tuning a couple of weeks ago that the advance curve was too large, so mechanical stops must have worn away. I left it until now as I didn't want to change more than one component while troubleshooting the cutout. Sent it to Performance Ignition Services. Interestingly, the guy recommended leaving it on points.