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Hello, just finished the team rush jeep v8 ignition upgrade, and now have a problem.the engine starts fine and idles fine but when I put a load on it ,it bogs down and has no power. I changed out distributor ,cap, rotor , wires and have a msd off road box with the ford style coil. I have rechecked timing and firing order. I hope this is a simple thing that I have overlooked.
1978 CJ7
Silver paint with black hard top on 33" radials & eagle alumium rims. Good looking ride and have done lots of work to make it look and run great.
Stock equipment is 258 carb, power brakes, power steering, hard top & hard doors (per vehicle gross weight) tilt steering wheel, big brake package with large rotars & drums, T18 Trans with low 6.4 granny gear, Dana 20 transfer, Dana 30 front axle, Dana 44HD rear axle with 3.73 gears. True Trac ft & rear.
I was around jeeps in the 70's and drove a 1973 Jeep Truck. My family had 4 jeeps at the time. We also joined a jeep club back then too. So about 6 years ago looked for a Jeep CJ and found the vehicle above.
My first blush is the TEAMRUSH & MSD (Mutli Spark Capacitance Discharge) is the BEST upgrade we can do to a CJ or Jeep from the 70s and 80s..... I did this 5 yrs ago to my AMC 258 i6 / 4.2l and it screems, breaks both tires loose on gravel just hitting gas in 1st, and I get 23 mpg hwy. When you guys need to do tune ups, use the teamrush parts, spring $AMC 150 for MSD and leave your stock ignition installed for back up ignition and for when you sell the CJ and keep the MSD for next project.
The MSD & TEAMRUSH is 500% better ignition and you are thowing 500V at the plugs everytime and many times multi sparks per cylinder fires.... I will guess you are a bit lean now. You did not mention what carb you have but lots of posts list the jets they are using. I had to bump up my WEBER jets when I put in the MSD and already had the teamrush parts. Lean condition will make/bog down the engine on secondary, under load type situations. I have also seen lean condition show up going down a steep hill using engine to hold back momentum will get some slight rumble in the exhaust......
I also want you to ck your system and balancer more..... Changed DISTRIBUTOR is what you posted.... so GUESS you took out the prestolite dist/ignition. Did you look at the mechanical/centrifical advance slots by looking down the little holes. YOu want the 13r & 18r slots. Did you find TDC on the compresion stroke for #1 cylinder to install your dist??? What i recommend is lets find TDC, verifty the balancer has not spun, and we have a dist with 13/18r and does not need modification to run properlty. Did you test drill the dist gear to verify it was not one of the hardened gears on the market?? Did you buy a remand Duraspark dist or get one from junk yard, NOS, etc?????
ANS the questions above about dist, advance slots, etc. and will write more what we can do.
Give me some feed back on dist and such before you try to change your jets or mods.
The distributor is a remanufactured cardone for a 1978 AMC 304 . The coil,wires,cap ,rotor and adaptor were a gift, but i think they are from CRT performance or something like that.The carb is a stock 2100 motorcraft and it was at top dead on the compression stroke. After everything was back together,I took it for a test drive to my brother's which is about 4 miles away,It ran smooth and strong.On the way back is when it started to lose power. This Jeep has been in my family since I was in the 6th grade.I have done a lot of things to this Jeep but this has me puzzled.
Any chance the distributor hold down clamp has come a little loose? I like the KISS mantra. Im sure you did some moving of wires in the engine compartment could a wire have come loose, grounded it self out or been burnt through. could all your monkeying around caused some stuff to break loose in the fuel line and clog them?
Try giving it more timming. Advance it until it pings than back it off a little until the pingging stops. It sounds like you don't have enough. I always run as much as it will take they run so much better that way.
Started from scratch again with distributor and timing .This time I Had a better outcome . For what ever reason 3rd time was the charm.
Thank you for the help.
Kevin
1978 CJ7
Silver paint with black hard top on 33" radials & eagle alumium rims. Good looking ride and have done lots of work to make it look and run great.
Stock equipment is 258 carb, power brakes, power steering, hard top & hard doors (per vehicle gross weight) tilt steering wheel, big brake package with large rotars & drums, T18 Trans with low 6.4 granny gear, Dana 20 transfer, Dana 30 front axle, Dana 44HD rear axle with 3.73 gears. True Trac ft & rear.
I was around jeeps in the 70's and drove a 1973 Jeep Truck. My family had 4 jeeps at the time. We also joined a jeep club back then too. So about 6 years ago looked for a Jeep CJ and found the vehicle above.
good to ask counter for a rebuilt 1978 or 1979 DuraSpark Distributor...
but, that does not mean you get the non computer dist with the larger mecanical advance slots. Counters use the same part number for the dist for the 1980s as the 1970s... So.... buyer has to look at the slots to see if they get the right dist....
The dist signal wire is from a magnetic pick up to fire the spark is a LOW LEVEL signal that needs to be protected.... I think your MSD wires and Plug wires were too close to this and started getting NOISE and caused the MSD/Coil to fire at the wrong time...
The MSD Box and Spark Plug Wires......This is now high voltage and fast switch with multiple fires per cylinder.... The MSD coil fire is now a H Voltage noise producer.... with magnetic flux lines that grow and collasp. This can cause false triggers in Dist magnetic pick up.
Run the dist magnetic pick up by itself. Do not run // paralle to any wires that switch or carry fair amount of power.... another example the heater blower motor. Run the dist pick up signal wire by itself and next to the fender wall and fire wall. The jeep cj metal body will act as shield and protect from magnetic flux liines. Also the dist mag pick wires should be twisted 2-3 turns per inch to cut down on cross talk and signal generation.
These are necessary steps.
I often ask for pics so I can see the wire routings...with MSD
Jeep has been running fine for about 200 miles and once again with no warning will idle fine but bogs down under load .Retiming has no affect so I will be pulling the distributor out again . This is frustrating
