Lancia Motor Club

My 2000 HF became distinctly cranky after an hour of crawling through a hot central London in heavy traffic on Saturday afternoon.  The engine did not overheat (the electric fan does its job well), but as I drove the car out of the centre towards my flat just south of the river, the revs were hunting, and the car backfired a couple of times.  At traffic lights close to home the car conked out, and did not wish to re start, so I pushed it into a parking bay, and waited twenty minutes (talking to a cool young Italian man who passed by and REALLY knew his Lancia history - this was the first 2000 Coupe he had ever seen in the metal).  I then re started the car and drove it the one minute home.  

Yesterday I ran the engine briefly and when warmed up it seemed a tad lumpy and might have been misfiring a bit.  Today in the early cool of the morning I drove the car from Kennington to Islington so that a mechanic whom I know can check its plugs, leads, dizzy, and so on.  An Italian tune up is not viable in 20 mph zones, and anyway I am not sure that the Italian tune up is effective on a fuel injected car in the way that it might be on an engine with a carb or carbs.  The car showed no issues on the way north.

Has anyone experienced heat-soak related ignition or other issues with the Flavia/2000 engine?   I add that my one has Sparkrite electronic-ignition.

Fuel vaporisation? Fuel Pump not doing it's stuff? Mine was a pig to get going again after a run and was always best left till it had cooled down.

Yes, I must check the bills in the file to see how old the fuel pump is.

Yours is a Bosch FI Gerard, so will be different from the earlier Kuglefisher systems (Jim). Even my Flavia Vignale Kuglefisher FI with its fuel return will vapour lock if switched off after a hot run (hot day etc) although it will continue to run albeit grumpily. It is an inherent problem of flat fours and V engines as the heat generated by the engine has no where to go. Modern fuels are more volatile compounding the issue. I have never had this problem with my (standard) Gamma, although some folk go to great lengths (pardon the pun) in wrapping the exhausts (which are underneath so not really contributing). You could try a 12v computer size fan in front of the injector pump......

Thanks, that is very helpful!

Hi Gerard

It may be worth swapping out the ignition coil in case that is getting hot and starting to fail?

I guess you need to try to establish fuel or ignition which is the problem. If it persists maybe an air/fuel sensor in the exhaust may help to eliminate one or the other?

Peter

Yes, all good suggestions, thanks.  The bloke who used to look after my old cars when I kept them in London back in the day is today doing a series of checks on the car's ignition and fuelling.    He has mostly given up professional spannering and moved on to other things but he kindly agreed to have a look at the car at short notice.  The bloke who currently looks after my cars in Oxfordshire has made the same observation about flat engines and V6s as already made above - his TVR has a Ford Essex V6 and that, he tells me, is an engine that can also be prone to being cantankerous on hot days.
     

I see somebody beat me to it re exhaust manifold - get it ceramic coated ! was chatting to a friend in the trade this am about exactly this issue in alfa 105 coupe.

To be honest most if not all old engines I have owned don’t like sitting in traffic and getting hot, which is a problem with living in south west London.  I find fuel vaporisation happens more when restating an engine when it’s hot rather than when driving it.

Yes, fair comment.  Nursing my old Jensen through London jams could be quite tense sometimes.  When driving a 60s or 70s car in bad traffic on a hot day, there is that question: "Shall I switch off?", because you are not always confident that the car will re start when the lights go green.

Update:  the current view of the mechanic who has checked the car is that excessive heat along with the combination of modern fuel and 1970s tech was the cause of the problem the other day.  As he pithily said: "the problem you have is that it runs fine, until it doesn't".   Anyway, the car has had a set of new plugs and a shiny polish, and I'll get it looked at again next week when its regular mechanic will be doing some work underneath it anyway.

There's a book on the topic:

https://www.lancia.myzen.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=11627.0

Thanks!

Good book. Makes the point that a bit more advance is beneficial in more ways than one, but not so much that the engine pinks higher up.... engine will run a bit cooler. Also use a good high octane fuel...

I am fortunate in having an Esso Station within five miles of home, so I can get the high octane stuff minus the ethanol.  Sadly Esso stations are not as plentiful as they once were.   I've had the advance and retard looked at carefully on my Beta and my Fiat 124, but need to get them carefully checked on the HF and Appia and even on my old Landy, which although made in the early 80s has a 1950s Rover saloon car engine, only lightly modernised by BL for the end of the line.

Gerard,

There is of course an alternative solution to the problem, move out of SW London into the countryside !

Only joking.

Bob

While Esso is good fuel I have had predetonation problems with my Fulvia 1600 HF (modified hi compression) and also my Gamma, both of which have correct advance curves. I do not suffer when filling with Shell Vpower.

But look at what happens to the fuel pump in this Lotus on V Power -


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKzLLgR5TVA

I do not live in SW London.  Someone else who posted above does.  I have a flat near Lambeth Bridge, and a place in South Oxfordshire where my old cars live in a barn. 

A word of warning about hoovering debris from around the fuel system. Most vacuum cleaners pass the sucked air through the motor to cool it which is really fun if you suck petrol vapour over a sparking commutator. Proceed with caution.

I know.  Subject to location of sale, Esso's most expensive petrol does not contain ethanol.  

Here's a speculative thought:  in the next few decades, classic cars with internal combustion engines will, I expect, continue to be driven, although in falling or stable numbers, supported by things such as developments in 3D printing to replace worn out parts (once all of eBay has run out of dusty boxes found in back rooms).    I would expect Governments to licence small supplies of fuel for use in classic cars, whilst most forms of personal transport will be running on other sources of energy, and may become largely autonomous.   I wonder if amongst the limited fossil fuel supplies there might be petrol of the kind sold in the 50s to 80s.  

Owning and running a classic car in, say, 2050 may require some sort of specialist licence and possibly a deep pocket, but I expect that it will still be possible.   I might just possibly still be around in 2050, but I think that I probaby won't be.  I wonder if my daughter (who will then be 46) will still have her old dad's 1962 Appia, or will her idea of a classic car be her old dad's 2009 Jaguar.  Hipsters in 2050 may be collecting early Teslas.

Just thinking that the chances of fixing a 2009 Jag against a much simpler Appia might be a factor only time will tell...
Clarkey