The Ford Barn

mfirth · 07-05-2025, 03:57 PM

On the small air cleaners, a friend had a new small air cleaner with the paper element. Swapped the paper one out for a 50s style screen type element & it ran great. Also was mentioned original dizzy. If its an 8BA stock dizzy, it doesn't work well with dual carbs.

Southtowns27 · 07-09-2025, 06:32 PM

UPDATE: It runs. I talked to a buddy that races a flathead at TROG and the like. He mentioned that his magneto had a tendency to burn the cores out of spark plugs and it'll act just like I described. I thought no way, but I was running a 60,000V coil, relatively high compression, and a large-ish plug gap. So what the heck, I threw a new set of plugs in it, put a stock coil back on, tightened up the gap and now it rips. The old plugs don't have continuity through them measured with a multimeter. I've never seen that before and would have NEVER guessed that was the issue. They look perfectly fine (not fouled, etc) but they're 100% bad...

KiWinUS · 07-09-2025, 07:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Southtowns27

UPDATE: It runs. I talked to a buddy that races a flathead at TROG and the like. He mentioned that his magneto had a tendency to burn the cores out of spark plugs and it'll act just like I described. I thought no way, but I was running a 60,000V coil, relatively high compression, and a large-ish plug gap. So what the heck, I threw a new set of plugs in it, put a stock coil back on, tightened up the gap and now it rips. The old plugs don't have continuity through them measured with a multimeter. I've never seen that before and would have NEVER guessed that was the issue. They look perfectly fine (not fouled, etc) but they're 100% bad...

Fantastic. Stock ford ignition systems for the most part are Great.

Tim Ayers · 07-10-2025, 08:47 AM

Awesome. Great news.

tubman · 07-10-2025, 04:57 PM

It's great that you found it. We used to have the same problem with 2 cycle snowmobile engines. All of a sudden, one cylinder would start running sour. We'd pull the plug, and when we looked at it, it seemed perfect. However, if we replaced it with a good plug, and it would run like gangbusters. A friend of mine had a spark plug cleaner and tried to resurrect several of these"dead" plugs; to my recollection, they just wouldn't come back.

07-05-2025, 03:57 PM	#21
mfirth Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2017 Location: ohio Posts: 1,103	Re: Won't run past 3500 rpm On the small air cleaners, a friend had a new small air cleaner with the paper element. Swapped the paper one out for a 50s style screen type element & it ran great. Also was mentioned original dizzy. If its an 8BA stock dizzy, it doesn't work well with dual carbs.

07-09-2025, 06:32 PM	#22
Southtowns27 Member Join Date: Sep 2022 Posts: 54	Re: Won't run past 3500 rpm UPDATE: It runs. I talked to a buddy that races a flathead at TROG and the like. He mentioned that his magneto had a tendency to burn the cores out of spark plugs and it'll act just like I described. I thought no way, but I was running a 60,000V coil, relatively high compression, and a large-ish plug gap. So what the heck, I threw a new set of plugs in it, put a stock coil back on, tightened up the gap and now it rips. The old plugs don't have continuity through them measured with a multimeter. I've never seen that before and would have NEVER guessed that was the issue. They look perfectly fine (not fouled, etc) but they're 100% bad...

07-10-2025, 08:47 AM	#24
Tim Ayers Senior Member Join Date: May 2010 Location: NJ Posts: 6,917	Re: Won't run past 3500 rpm Awesome. Great news.

07-10-2025, 04:57 PM	#25
tubman Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2013 Location: Minnesota, Florida Keys Posts: 11,632	Re: Won't run past 3500 rpm It's great that you found it. We used to have the same problem with 2 cycle snowmobile engines. All of a sudden, one cylinder would start running sour. We'd pull the plug, and when we looked at it, it seemed perfect. However, if we replaced it with a good plug, and it would run like gangbusters. A friend of mine had a spark plug cleaner and tried to resurrect several of these"dead" plugs; to my recollection, they just wouldn't come back.