[T3] Fluttering engine performance...

[Jim Adney]

On 25 Nov 2010 at 22:57, J. Jonik wrote:

> Thanks for advising on a place to focus...the trigger contacts. But, I
> must have ten or a dozen sets, and have tried several....points all
> now cleaned with heavy paper, like the inside (non printed) side of
> matchbook covers....not fine sandpaper or even special Points Files. 
> I may send one or two of the better looking ones to you for
> professional inspection, diagnosis (or autopsy) and approval...but
> isn't there a way to test for the best, or perfect, one(s)?

I don't have a decent way for you to tell what is good and what is 
bad. Cleaning them the way you did was good, but it's not the whole 
story. There's just no sub for having a complete, known-good 
distributor.

>    I also have a box full of distributors and parts.  SOME combo of
> all this must be able to put a properly functional car together. 

I agree that it's likely that SOME combination is likely to be good, 
but finding that combination by random testing is unlikely to ever 
succeed. As a co-worker once described it to me, "You're wandering 
around in a multi-dimensional parameter space, just hoping to stumble 
onto the sweet spot."

Sending me a couple of trigger points to check and reset is certainly 
a step in the right direction, but your best option would be to send 
me 2-3 complete distributors and ask me to make you one known-good 
unit. That should get you by with the minimum possible cost, assuming 
I can find all the good parts you need from 2-3 cores. It might not 
fix your problem, but it would completely eliminate one complete area 
of suspicion.

One of the worst customers I ever had kept all his old parts in his 
tool box and tried to fix all his problems by random substitution 
from his stash of old parts. Needless to say, his car eventualy 
became totally undriveable. I had to resort to crushing bad parts 
before I gave them back to him, just to keep him from putting those 
parts back in his stash.

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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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