Yesterday, while I was attempting to get to my shop to play with my other cars, Gil went sour. The past few time I drove it, if the engine was lugged in too tall of a gear, it would kind of sneeze through the carb. I don't want to say backfire because it didn't seem that extreme, just more of a, well, sneeze. Yesterday was different though. At a stoplight, it did the sneeze thing but then started running on three cylinders. What was wierd though was that the idle went UP from about 950 rpm before to 1100 rpm on three cylinders. I limped the car to my shop, parked it and bummed a ride home. I know, I know, I should have stayed and had a look at it to see what was wrong but I had another project I had put off too long. Anyway, I'm going back today to see if the valves went out of adjustment and then check the ignition system. I'm hoping I didn't flatten a cam lobe like I have seen happen on other hot rod A-14s. If this engine is dead though, it will light a fire under the "mom car" project. Wish me luck.

I lost a lobe once in my A12
and had to drive back 60 miles
to get home. twas no fun..
all I had to do was put a new
cam in and replace the lifters
and back on the road it went..
now lost all oil pressure hmm
oh well.. picked up a ca trans
yesterday for 75 bucks out of
a 1987 200sx .. hope I can
get it to fit..
Good luck with Gil
Wubbits

I went back to the shop with every intention of looking at the problem. I wound up making an exhaust X-pipe for another project. I'm far too lazy to work on my own, unsupervised. Tensandtwenties will probably ride my butt to get it fixed soon though. We'll see.

I'm not sure about the butt-riding, but we will get it diagnosed Thursday.

This so called sneeze you talk of...what is it exactly?? My Ford ute does something similar and I want to know what the hell it is!

When starting cold in the mornings it will wind over but not fire. Some times it does what could be called a sneeze back up thru the Weber carby. It looks real bad sometimes as smoke wafts out from under the bonnet. Whats the deal with that? Fuel burning but not firing the engine over? It usually starts next go of the key. It runs electronic ignition if thats any help. Cheers.

Sounds similar to the sneeze mine does. I guess technically I should call it a back fire but it isn't as violent as that name connotes. It is more of a "chuff" than a "BANG" or "POP" noise. I think it is coming from the carb but, once again, I haven't really explored the problem yet. The reasons are twofold: 1) I'm very lazy, and b) I suck at diagnosis.

sorry to hear about the misfortune the dimlight, it always sucks when youhave to do engine that doesn't actually make any kind of perfomrance increase i'm the same way with being to lazy to start a project. but with me once i get rolling i tend to get WAY WAY carried away with it. hell when i finally got to stipping down my turbocoupe and then working on the 1200, i went about a week and a half of working on them from once i woke up till it was too dark to work. i actually got a sunburn at one point so bad that it blistered and actaully scabbed over LOL once i get going i tend to lose all common sense

yeah mines a chuff, not a bang or pop. It just sneezes and does this chuff/choof sound.
I want to know what it is, could be something that will effect my wallet if I leave it alone.

We found, and fixed, the problem last night. Apparently, some overzealous jackass with a heavy right foot, over-reved it. The intake pushrod on the #4 cylinder was bent about 45 degrees or more and finally slipped off the rocker killing that cylinder. Cylinder #1 had one pushrod with a slight "S" curve to it but it was still in contact with the rocker. When John pulled the plug wires one at a time, #1 & #4 had no effect on the idle while #2 & #3 would almost kill the engine.
Yes folks, I had me a 2 cylinder, 700cc 1200 last Saturday and I still pulled away from that Honduh at the light.
By the way, the heavy footed jackass was me.

Geez, how hard did you rev it? What does your engine redline at anyway? I've given mine a little over-revving many times, but never had anything like that happen. I use Malvern racing's lightweight chrome-moly pushrods and haven't had any problems, actually picked up some power too believe it or not. They weren't too expensive either. I just gave the silver bullet a tune up/oil change today, man she runs nice. You can't beat the way Datsuns run when you give them a little love. Good luck fixin your Datto, don't feel too bad because all of us I'm sure are guilty of pushing the A series a little hard. Hey any chance I'll see the intake manifold this weekend? Talk to ya later!

-Andy