crane cams ignition trouble

Hey, anybody out there know what's wrong with my car? I just installed the Crane HI-6 w/LX92 coil and the new street/race distributor, you know the one without any springs or weights inside. It is the small cap but Crane assures me that with a CD type ignition there cant be any arching over inside the cap. MY PROBLEM IS THIS: The car starts and runs good if I let it sit for afew hours. If I let it warm up, shut it off, and start it again the timing is ALL OVER THE PLACE! The engine actually rattles on start up! Put the timing light on and it jumps all across the marks on the dampner (fluidampner, not a cheap stocker) from BTDC to way past 40 ATDC. I am on my second distributor from Crane, they also don't know what to tell me (but they are very helpful and agreeable), I have plugged in an MSD box and it did the same thing. Any ideas/ opinions will be greatly appreciated. I should probably mention that the car is a '67 Camaro RS/SS 350 with a very nice little small block. Thanks. :banghead:

I have had some clients with similar issues on there performance platform. Start with checking the basics, put #1 cylinder at TDC and make sure that your rotor points right on the #1 cylinder on the Dist cap. Then make sure from that point that the plug wires are in the right order. Now the similar problem point, they were using the magnetic trigger input to their CDI boxes MSD or Crane does not matter. The input wires to this input port needed to be reversed. Some where the wires had been switched around in the Dist and needed to put the positive to the positive & Negitive with negitive. We were able to get them running with that little known trick give it a shot after checking the basics please. NO Blown Up Parts needed!!! :-)

Regards,

Pat Collins

TechWest Racing Services: Tech Support
Huntersville,NC
www.techwestracing.com

Thanks alot for the reply! I was told of this trick you mentioned by a local hot rodder. But when I asked Crane about it I was told not to bother because it's different on the Crane system. He said that if I switched those two wires around the engine would not run at all. Any body got any ideas? Thanks again.

I wonder if your plug wires are bad. Sometimes wires can allow energy to jump from one wire to another through induction, and not neceessarily an open spark, especially if they touch one another. This is more common with a new high energy ignition system,
I might suggest a new set of wires and make sure they are separated properly with PLASTIC (not metal) supports.

thanks MagicRat, but I think ep33510 has it figured out for me. As far as I'm concerned he's a freakin' genious and should be allowed back onto AF and welcomed back with open arms! He got my car working perfectly, and it didnt take him long at all once he knew all about the car. Turns out if your battery is more than 2 years old is is pushing less current than what is actually required with the new high powered ignition systems. He told me to replace my battery and replace my battery cables with welding cable and the car seems to work perfectly now. I owe Pat Collins (ep33510) a great debt of gratitude because no one, including Crane Cams, had any clues as to what the problem could be. THANK YOU PAT COLLINS!!! Also thanks to MagicRat for the input, it is also greatly appreciated.