Building A looper Beast

[R Austin]

Just do not seem to be able to shake the on water issues. Constantine has come and gone and still not able to find the real potential of the Beast.
Again, out of the pits running on 4 or 5 cylinders, yet running fine on the dyno, mechanically holding up good. Just can not get to fire on all 6 on the boat in the water.

The engine did go into a full limp mode and did stay that way. Thought that maybe over fueled when backed off into that last turn. So pulled the boat and checked plugs, blew out cylinders and installed new plugs. Dry fired in the pit area and blasted off on all 6 and responded great. No load of course.

Sunday we put in the water and it would only run on a couple of cylinders and not even begin to plane, limped back to pits and pulled plugs and installed another set. Again, only fire on 2 or 3 cylinders. Pulled out of the water and again pulled and cleaned plugs , checked compression, and all good. Dry fired and blasted right off on all 6 and sounded great.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVUYxR7SU-o

My take at this point is the the low speed winding's are bad. Dry fire just passes right past low winding to high speed. In the water it can not make it to the high speed. Will just do the tests and find the problem. At least now it is down and should be able to find.

[PPRINT]

Is spark plug heat range a possible culprit?

Edit:
Too cold of a plug can give you fits.

Rob

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

[Dew1us]

I have seen a similar issue like this and the culprit was a kill switch. We unplugged the kill switch and it ran fine.

[Powerabout]

when you have a strange problem with a Merc, swap out the stator

[Powerabout]

The ratio on the drive is 3 to 1. I know that the pump is made for a normal operating conditions of 2500 RPM at 2500 PSI. I directed by concerns on the speed of the pump and the restrictions of maintaining a solid flow of oil without cavitation to the pump. However I may have gone to far the other way as the trade off on volume is pressure. The 3 to 1 will now translate into high pressure. Hopefully that side of the system can better stand that overload. Time will tell. Again I just want a load that will let tune close enough for final real life on the water tuning. If it can stand it then that will be even better.

Hi Dick
ages ago I was trying to find that rotary load cell kit I knew they used on Class 1 offshore boats in europe, not sure who supplied those
but I found an old Hot rod 2013 and AEMElectronics.com made them for fitting to cars via gearbox yoke.

[R Austin]

Been a while since my last post Seems like the last year has been almost a complete loss.

Four weeks after Constantine, I had a partial right knee replacement. I had been having trouble walking and certain position problems which kneeling was not one of them. Thinking the joint was wore out, only to find out I had been walking on a cracked femur in the knee joint requiring a half knee replacement. That all went well and now back to full mobility.

After Constantine last year I went into the ignition system and as suspected, the windings in the stator was out of spec on the low speed side of one set of windings. I purchased a new CDI hi performance stator and rechecked the flywheel clearances. Found that the flywheel flex plate clearance was to close to the top of the stator windings. With that I removed the top main cap and remachined the cap to lower the stator winding and trigger coils to acceptable clearances.

With the new stator windings in place the coils hooked to an open air spark board and gaped at 5/8 inch, it has the hottest spark that I have ever seen. Scary hot, the sound of spark that could really hurt you.

I took the heads off and replaced them with the dual plug heads In the photo attached you can seen by the chamber colors that there was a lack of consistent firing. Cylinders 1 (Left), 3, and 5 are on the same pack and windings. 1 and 5 are weak in their coloring from combustion. All indicators of ignition problems.

Have started it on the dyno with the dual plug heads and oil rich avgas used to flush out the alcohol and lube down and started up and ran on all 6. With this summer being a total loss with the pandemic, Constantine has come and gone. Will just work with it on the dyno and see what pans out for the rest of the summer.

[R Austin]

Well the virus has not got me yet. Sure has got the summer screwed up. Along with all facets of life.
Constantine antique meet was a couple of weeks ago and did not make that. The engine sets on the dyno where it was placed last August after the Constantine meet last year.

Had trouble with my right knee last spring and summer with walking. X-rays showed a good joint without excessive wear. After a couple months of monitoring the condition an MRI was finally done and revealed a cracked femur in the knee joint. When I ran the boat in Constantine, I had no trouble kneeling, just walking. So, 3 weeks after Constantine, I had a partial replacement of the knee. Just the end of the femur and the end of the bone in the lower leg the femur mates to. That pretty much took car of the last of the summer.

I did finally look at the ignition system and did the testing of the stator windings. The low speed windings were way out of spec. Removed the flywheel replaced with a CDI High Performance stator. I also pull the top main bearing out and remachined the stator and trigger mounting surfaces as I needed to open up the clearance between the flywheel and the stator. The block for a ADI system is about 3/16 inch shorter on the top end. I had redone the top main cap upon discovery rather than shorting the block because the engine had been assembled when the problem was realized. The flywheel had touched the stator so the modification was made.

The fire power of the ignition after the replacement of the stator is absolutely powerful. It spans a 1/2 inch air gap and looks and sounds scary, like it could really hurt you really bad. From the beginning when I first set the ignition system up. It had no where near the gap jumping power it has now. So I think the stator wind has been a problem from the beginning.






Maybe not a good thing to do but i reinstalled the dual plug heads. I am sure the system has the fire power to make them work. The dual plug heads are also higher compression. 16cc vs 20cc which is a significant number. With fuel injection vs the carbs that these heads were last used with, and the improved dyno performance, I can confirm there performance.

The photo of the single plug heads, sort of confirms a combustion problem by the coloring of the chambers. 1,3 & 5 are from one system and 2,4 & 6 are from the other system and coloring of the 1,3 & 5 look like a problem existed.






So much for all that. I hope to run on the dyno in the next few weeks and continue to dial in the ECU. I can do 30 second info down loads for review. 30 seconds does not sound like long until you try holding it.

[Fastjeff57]

I too run CDI's similar ignition system on an old Mark 78. That tiny spark coil of theirs bothered me, so I ran it with the much larger Merc coil (and it worked fine. Have yet to sea trail that setup, however.)

Hope your knee is better 'cause your project has a boatload of supporters eager to see it succeed (like me!)

Jeff

[J-Dub]

For what it’s worth, here are my experiences with Six Looper ignitions.
When I originally got my 60” Looper put together I thought I would simply and somewhat modernize the ignition with a CDI box to run the Thunderbolt Ignition, why not, right?
Having had some successful experience with the original Mercury Box as well as the CDI Box on gas 44’s and 66’s I AssUMe’d it would be fine on the looper. WRONG!
So I got it on there, check for spark, set the timing, and we’re ready to fire it up. Right? NO! We pulled the string a few times and it’ll pop and fart but not fire... Must be the battery! NOPE! Must be a fuel issue. NOPE! (This is the short version of the story too!)
After significant reluctance, I finally gave in to my dads demands to “Put the F’n Green Mercury Box on it and 24 volts!” So I did to show him that the CDI box is just fine... First pull, lights right off and runs like a sewing machine.
Dad and I were both pretty stubborn, but he clearly was right in this situation. Unfortunately he’s gone now And I can’t ask for his advice anymore.
Moral to the story is that I learned it takes a lot more amps and voltage to light a high compression alcohol engine.
Disclaimer: I am far from an electrical engineer, I learned most of this by being a good listener, and making some mistakes...

[R Austin]

Some place at some time I think that I have shared this story before, so here it goes again.
1966 John McMullen (M-14) purchased the first 6 cylinder Quincy looper. He also purchased the 15' jones hydro for that new engine. At that time the only ignition available for the six cylinder was the battery ignition that we had been running on the deflector 6's. Merc had just released the breaker point version of the CDI ignition but it was really unknown in the racing circle. They struggled the whole season with that engine. It would start most times but not run on all 6 and was fouling plugs.
Fast forward to spring of 1967, I purchased the second Quincy 6. I purchased all the parts and assembled the engine with my internals from the deflector, with its reeds reworked for the Looper. Chris sent a note with the parts and said I have charged you for a new ignition system. It is not yet available, and I will forward to you upon receipt. This engine must use this new electronic ignition system.
Upon receipt and knowing the critical need for a 12 volt plus supply, and no charging system on the Looper. Running a total loss system.
I called Mercury and got hold of the tech people and asked about my concerns of voltage drop with the total loss system. Their response was, you can run up to a 30 volt supply without damage to the system.
So for me. I ran 24 volts on the system from the beginning. Engine ran really clean, no cracking and popping. I did some testing later, in an attempt to take out some weight and removed one battery. Ran, with 12 volts, but with noted popping and cracking, not clean and crisp as before. Reinstalled battery, to 24 volts, and ran clean as before without any other changes. At one time I even ran it with 24 volts on the capacitor / box, and 12 volts on the trigger circuit and also ran fine.
So with all that, Anyone who wants to run a Looper for just fun or show, do it justice and save yourself the grief of fowled plugs and hard starting.
Just a comparison of the fuel required for a Looper vs the deflector equivalent, the carbs looked the same but were different. They both were adjusted to about 1 1/4 turns open, however the Looper carb had a .060 fixed orifice drilled in the center post across from the needle opening as a fix jet.
Therefore the demand on the ignition system to fire this amount of fuel plus the higher cylinder pressure.