sputter

[G.M.]

Sometimes the rotor shorts through to the shaft. If this happens the phonlic material becomes carbonized. If it is shorted use an ohmeter from the brass ends of each of the 4 rotor tips to ground or the shaft and you will see resistance, if not shorted the meter won't move. G.M.

[kiwi88]

Jan I've just been through much the same grief with my phaeton. Went from two to one carb and all sorts. Finally nailed it down to plug length. I have fitted after market heads and old plugs were to short and not burning the gas. Don't know what your set up is but always taught that if misses under load then its more than likely electrics, if not then its gas. Having said that I am a newbie and would respectfully defer to the older more experienced heads here. How did the car run before you fitted carbs? If it ran fine then its probably something you've done. What have you changed?

Also whats a "douchebag"? Is that a northern hemisphere compliment?

[Terry,OH]

From the results of changing plugs and wires I now would remove the helmet and inspect. Maybe send out for rebuild and timing on a machine if this hasn't been done. send the coil and the condenser with the distributor. Bubba can run it on his machine for several minutes to check spark output. Appears that one side 5678 is not getting the same spark as 1234. Look for a bad inner cap, cracked rotor, bad coil brush to the rotor. I don't believe the more modern crab is any more dependable that the helmet. I do like to change the internals to the 1941 style advance curve.

[B-nut]

Don't forget the condenser! After much barking up the wrong tree ,half of my rough running engine problems usually turn out to be a bad condenser. Even some new ones are no good. If you are trying all those other things make sure you have a functional condenser