Wow! I think I had a coil messin with me on the Scott I had, after strandin me on a hilly road,pushing up the hills and coasting down trying to start it.After a few miles of that it started up.As DD said, timing has no effect on the coil itself but coils can go bad in very strange ways. I once worked on a car where the ignition would cut out on aggressive left-hand turns. It wouldn't do it in any other mode and wouldn't do it in a normal left turn. It was the coil! Talk about troublesome to diagnose...
I know, you may be thinking that it wasn't really the coil, maybe a connection that was corrected when we replaced it. NOPE, we installed the same coil in the same orientation in another car and the same thing occurred. Bizarre!
We kept it on the shelf with a sticker that said "OK for right turns."
Carbs go lean when hot and EFI tends to go rich, which is why you have to have the leg of a t-rex to fire a hot, hi-comp single like a BSA Victim 441. If your slides are a little loose, or the float height is a little low, it may be sucking a bit too much air, but only at idle does the lean out overcome the flywheel. The extra warmth could be from a slightly leaner mixture.Thanks for the quick response.took the roadster out for a compare its coils got warm but not as hot as the interstate, but I might have had the inter idling longer. Trying to figure out the Interstate's tendency to die at idle when warm (lots of potential issues there!)
same coils & ign setup for 20yrsAre you using 6 volt coils ? If so is the ballast resistor working correctly.Have you measured the voltage to the coils.
Assuming you still have points, a shorted/partly shorted ballast resistor could make the voltage too high at the coils. Just measure the voltage to ground on both sides of the ballast resistor - one side battery voltage, the other side approximately 6 volts. Too high a voltage or shorted coil, but since both are doing it, I suspect too high a voltage. Also possible that the regulator/Zener is bad and you overall have too much voltage at higher RPMs.same coils & ign setup for 20yrs
same coils & ign setup for 20yrs
I have been eyeing a Tri Spark for the better/ more like points ign curve and idle stabilization ....After 20yrs you would think that the system has been flogged to death, and wants to go into semi-retirement- you really need to get a complete electrician test of the whole system by someone who knows the ins and outs.
Maladjusted timing can cause piston trouble –don’t ask me how I know!