CDI+

The next part of the electrical sort-out was the panel in the engine bay. The one with the CDI box, rectifier, couple of relays, "speed switch" etc.

Here's what came with the car:

39870745765_d5cb49b2cc_o.jpg

Today it looks like this, which is quite nice but not the interesting part....

38955403270_942747683e_o.jpg

The interesting (to me) part is that I'm using a CDI+ box, having enjoyed good results with the one in my 69 car. The CDI+ is a CDI box replacement from www.classicretrofit.com; modern digital electronics and programmable ignition curve. I went for the Stealth version, built into a Bosch original case. I'm going a step further this time and locking the distributor, so the CDI+ is responsible for the advance curve.

For my car, the distributor is a Bosch 007. Standard advance curve for that is:

Bosch 0231159007 Advance.jpg

It's pretty easy to get the same curve into CDI+, as a starting point:

CDI+ screenshot.jpg

Please ignore the deliberate mistake - I've gone beyond the available adjust room for the amount of initial physical advance (hence my curve goes into the red area of the graph). I took the screenshot before I'd finished fiddling about.

Note also a few useful bells and whistles. On my other car I particularly like the soft limiter - much more civilised than the all-or-nothing mechanical limiter (spring in the rotor arm).

Click here for the full restoration story...