I think I know why I was having hot restart problems and lack of spark from the dizzy cap. It appears that my VDO tach has been shorting out the coil. Removing the tach and wiring fixed the hot restart/no start problem. I'm still not sure if I'm fixing a symptom or the real problem...

Anyway, I got the car going with the hotspark in a modified -003 distributor. I can say more on how I did this if you want.

Sadly once it was going, the car did not run all that well. I set the timing, checked the advance and readjusted everything. I even pulled the valve cover and rechecked my valve lash (all was still in spec).

When test-driving the car seemed to buck at higher speeds. Idle was erratic and would not drop below 1000 rpms without stalling. Attempts to adjust the SU HS6 carbs were fruitless. They became entirely un-tunable. The car also seemed to be running really hot.

One last test drive after a long cool-down period (for my temper and for the car) and it felt like the car was actually misfiring. I parked it and was about to give up and borrow my wife's car for tomorrow. However, I decided to swap the crane dizzy back in - just to see what happened.

Surprise. The car idles perfectly smooth and the carbs behaved as they should have. She ran fine on a test drive.

What am I to make of all this? is the hotspark junk? would I have the same problem with the pertronix? Hard to say. I doubt I can say much to the HS dude, since I bought this from a third party...

I was able to get this hotspark new and unused for $20.00. I was able to fit it into a dizzy I already had, so I'm only out about half the cash for the usual unit. This HS unit was a vacuum model - identical to the other version except that you ca adjust the gap between the sensor and the ring (set to .030). *Maybe* adjusting that gap will solve some of the problems I've had. *maybe* the extended cranking I had to do on the engine put undue stress on the HS unit.

Still. If the thing really is *that* fragile. Maybe I'll be better off taking my chances with crane and hoping that the Tach was the problem all along...

In any case, I put the HS dizzy in the trunk and keep it for an ignition emergency.

If anyone else has any Hotspark experiences to share, please post. I really wanted this thing to work, but right now, I would not recommend anyone try it.

I DID NOT reverse the wire polarity, so please don't suggest it as the cause of my problems.