[jjb]

After sitting several weeks, car starts and idles roughly (chug-chugging) and puffs of black smoke. Like it was missing on a cylinder. Pulled the plugs and they were all black and fouled. Put in new ones but no change. I rapped the cold start solenoid on the SPICA, then disconnected it. No joy.
Obviously very rich.

BC extension is 48 mm. distributor and rotor look fine. SPICA is newly rebuilt by Wes. Car was running fine before it sat.

What gives ?

Cheers,
Jeff

 

[alfafan61]

Jeff:

What is the condition/extension on the TA?

 

[jjb]

Good suggestion.
TA extension matches my other good one, although thats only at ambient temperature.
So I put in my dummy TA set at 29.5 mm extension. That TA extension should have leaned out the mixture, but nothing seemed to change in the way it ran.
Not sure what to try next.

Jeff

 

[gprocket]

I am kinda leaning toward the CSS. Does it start nicely from dead cold 12 VDC (carefully - sparks + fuel...) to the CSS lead. If it is working the RPM's should drop. If it doesn't the CSS might be stuck in the enriched state.

 

[greg]

Did you checked position of the lever that need to changed according to outside temprature i changed lever position to freezing and it stats up right away. before I had also fouled plugs and wrong lever position. Look in manual.

 

[jjb]

O.K. Confusion.
The last thing I did was pull the back cover on the SPICA to watch the CSS when I energized it. It worked fine - quick snap up, then slow drop when I take the voltage away. That was my last thing to check, and I agree with a couple of you who suspected this. Frustrated, I buttoned it back up and tried it again.
Ran Perfectly !
Arrgghhh !#@^%$$!

What is going on ???

Cheers, Jeff

 

[alfafan61]

OK, what are we missing? The last time I had a similar problem I had messed up the firing order and was not getting good plug connections.

 

[gprocket]

Jeff:

Sounds to me that your poking around with the CSS did the job. If you let it sit for long periods, it will probably stick again. Good excuse to keep it in heavy rotation.

 

[dcalfa]

Mine does the same thing randomly (no pattern to outside temp/how long it's been sitting/etc.) and then clears up after a couple mins. I'd say it's happening 1-in-4 or 1-in-5 starts on average. An experienced Alfa mechanic had the problem licked by adjusting the Spica a couple months back, but it recently reappeared.

 

[bianchi2]

... at this point , make an offering to the alfa gods..we shall not speak of this agian..bad carma'..