>I've never been able to get my color tune to work either and I've always
>wondered if it's defective or not. The problem I have it that I can see the
>spark firing in the colortune but only 1 out of every 6-7 sparks will actually
>ignite the mixture.
Let's do the simple and obvious things first. Have you cleaned the
Colortune with the vial of cleaner that they provide? I know that
Danny always cleans the Colortune before and after each use. If the
cylinder is running ludicrously rich, the sight glass can simply get
covered with soot to such a degree that you can't see through it.
Next: is the wire connected properly at both ends? Is it possible
that the vibration of your engine is shaking the wire and the piece
that comes off the Colortune enough that the connection gets flaky
and it doesn't fire?
Last: Have you frobbed the mixture to see whether a different mixture
will result in better ignition? It's possible that the Colortune is
gapped wrong for your car, but it's also possible that your mixture is
*so* far off that it only ignites infrequently. Given the amazing range
of mixtures over which I've seen MG engines fire up, if not run well,
I wouldn't be surprised if this was in fact the problem. Basically,
at anything approaching idle, if you can see a spark (and if the timing
isn't hugely off), you should ignite, and if you don't ignite, it probably
isn't the fault of the Colortune. I mean, if three of your tires read
36 psi on the gauge, and the fourth one reads 18 psi on the same gauge,
it's highly unlikely that the gauge broke between the third and fourth
tires... :-)
If you want to drop it in interoffice mail, though, I'll check it out
for you (and even send it back! Such a deal!). My site code is UCB-1...
--Scott
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