WC won't start hot

Sounds like a bad coil.  Better take it off and send it to Steve @ B&B.

When hot, and being cranky, does it respond to a shot of something flammable in the carb?  If so, check for vacuum leaks in the manifold... either gasket, or a crack somewhere that's opening up when she's hot... if not, try raising the carb float level just a smidgen.

Last one I found like that had a crack nicely hidden in the upper back of the intake manifold, when cold, it sealed fine (and of course, I used the choke), and once changed, it has been a two-flip blip ever since.

And some fascinating notes for guys that're really interested in Orange.  The chamber design here... meaning, both the head, and the piston, AND the port/runner shape, makes the the Allis engine run well 'lean'... great for fuel economy when loaded less than 100%.  It takes more localized heat energy to ignite a very lean mixture, than a rich one, so lean-burning cylinders will drop off first.  Allis's engineers did a really good job with the design here- the incoming charge spins right in front of the spark plug, so it'll light off well under most conditions.  The AC fours couldn't beat the two-cylinder Deere in the Nebraska fuel economy tests under full dyno load... but they'd clean house on 'em at three-quarter and less throttle.  (My Grandpa gave me a stern lesson on that one back when we were raking hay...).  The 2-cylinder, at full snot, was very efficient at generating horsepower per hour per gallon...  but at partial throttle conditions and light loads, the big whomper was substantially thirsty.  The Allis's fuel consumption drops rapidly when throttled back under light load.

Honda actually employed the same concept in their CVCC engines of the late 70's and 80's, by actually running lean around the periphery of the chamber, but rich enough to fire reliably close to the plug... anyone that had a Honda CVCC eventually experienced a condition where the extra carb throat or dedicated manifold passage wasn't flowing right, and the darned thing wouldn't run worth a hoot, on account of the entire cylinder running lean.  A hot engine accellerates the evaporation, so Honda actually 'stratified' the charge by keeping the 'rich' passage cooler while the 'lean' passage ran hotter.  When it worked, it worked well, but those times when it didn't... well, it was frustrating.  Ran more reliably than an Austin-Healey, though.


Edited by DaveKamp - 18 Sep 2010 at 9:43am

Aaron, will it die when it warms up? If it runs OK up to temperature and stays running but just won't start after shutting it off, I don't believe it would be the mag unless it really warms up after shut down and the heat gets to the mag.

run a quart of transmission fluid through the next tank of gas and see if it helps . had a 351 ford truck  engine with stuck rings would do the same thing . couldnt beg it to start hot. acted like the timing was advanced way to high but wasnt .