[AlfaGreg]

About a year ago, my friend installed a new ignition system in my Spider similar to the one they use in their Alfa racecar. It has worked faultlessly for them over the years and has for me until about a month ago.

As we all love intermittant problems, I thought I would throw this out there for discussion.

Optical Unit: Crane XR700
MSD Unit: MSD 6AL
Coil: Bosch Red, c/w external ballast.

Problem: Immediate ignition cutoff while driving for 1/2 hour or more or a non- start condition when stopping for gas etc (i.e. heat soak condition). Strong crank over, no firing. Restarts after 1/2-1 hour of cooling down. Works perfectly both before and after ignition cutout or non start condition. Optical trigger LED does not flash during non start period. All components in engine bay on passenger's wheelwell area near carb filters.

Fuel System: Excellent. New filters. Fuel present Twin DCOE 40's
Battery: Excellent.
Plug wires: New
Wiring, Fuses etc: All functional, terminals clean and Stabilant22 treated.
Optical Trigger: Set as per manuf. reccomend. No visible probs.


This seems to be a heat related problem and has recently shown up. If the ballast were bad, the car would start, then not run. I believe ballast resistors are either go or no go. The coil is new at the time of ignition upgrade. The race car application has not encountered any problems, so incompatability should not be an issue. Popular speculation points to a faulty or failing coil. I have to go on the assumption that the Crane and MSD units are functional for now as i do not have a replacement.

Weather permitting, I will try to duplicate this fault this weekend with someone to help with diagnostics. I will bring along a spare coil and ballast.

Interested in any comments or similar experiences with XR700/6AL setups, coil selection etc.

Thanks in advance.