Thats not the image I had haha
Ah, is this wot you meant?

Unknown.jpeg
 
@Stanleysteamer well, well, well. Here is our SU carb "expert tuner" showing us all a perfect plug after a tuning session.
Just like the guy in the YT clip advised look at the fire mark/band on the earth strap of the plug. 100thou' band just above the thread of the plug.
View attachment 347138

On what is likely to be a final remark to do with this as I think you have got it aabout right now, this trubble you have had reminds me very vividly of the same trouble, sort of, that I had with W's Porsche copy kit car.
The engine was a tuned 1800 version of a VW flat four aircooled. Built by a guy called Arnie Levics, who apparently is a VW guru, and this was done for the kit car company when they sold ready built vehicles.
It has twin Webers with vertical intakes, a sports exhaust, high lift rockers, etc and it had a Bosch 009 dizzy, (no vacuum advance). It ran fine EXCEPT when warm and you wanted to take off from a standing start, like at lights, a roundabout or turning right across traffic, when it turned into a death trap. Rather than pick up when the accelerator was depressed, it would either bog down or stall.
I did a lot of research and learned that this was common with these carbs.
So I thought I'd obtain a normal dizzy that uses intake vacuum to advance the spark.
Not a problem, I got a new dizzy and even made it electronic. But I couldn't get it to respond to vacuum, either from the vacuum take off, off one of the carbs, or even from inlet manifold vacuum.
So in quiet desperation, I built myself a distributor testing machine. Very Heath-Robinson, but it worked. And with that I worked on modifying the total amount of advance, and how fast it came in, i.e. the advance curve.
I learned a lot by doing this, one of the things being how easy it is to measure advance by removing the springs and moving the central part of the dizzy that the rotor arm attaches to, if you make scratch marks or similar on the top edge of the body of the dizzy, lined up with similar on the rotor arm.
I eventually got it running better but I was still never happy with it.
But much of what you have been going through reminded me of my tribulations with it!

Personally I do not like the aircooled VW engines. I know they have their addicts. But I would be happy if I never had to work on one again.
Tinkering with BL A and B series engines is so much more gratifying!!
 
On what is likely to be a final remark to do with this as I think you have got it aabout right now, this trubble you have had reminds me very vividly of the same trouble, sort of, that I had with W's Porsche copy kit car.
The engine was a tuned 1800 version of a VW flat four aircooled. Built by a guy called Arnie Levics, who apparently is a VW guru, and this was done for the kit car company when they sold ready built vehicles.
It has twin Webers with vertical intakes, a sports exhaust, high lift rockers, etc and it had a Bosch 009 dizzy, (no vacuum advance). It ran fine EXCEPT when warm and you wanted to take off from a standing start, like at lights, a roundabout or turning right across traffic, when it turned into a death trap. Rather than pick up when the accelerator was depressed, it would either bog down or stall.
I did a lot of research and learned that this was common with these carbs.
So I thought I'd obtain a normal dizzy that uses intake vacuum to advance the spark.
Not a problem, I got a new dizzy and even made it electronic. But I couldn't get it to respond to vacuum, either from the vacuum take off, off one of the carbs, or even from inlet manifold vacuum.
So in quiet desperation, I built myself a distributor testing machine. Very Heath-Robinson, but it worked. And with that I worked on modifying the total amount of advance, and how fast it came in, i.e. the advance curve.
I learned a lot by doing this, one of the things being how easy it is to measure advance by removing the springs and moving the central part of the dizzy that the rotor arm attaches to, if you make scratch marks or similar on the top edge of the body of the dizzy, lined up with similar on the rotor arm.
I eventually got it running better but I was still never happy with it.
But much of what you have been going through reminded me of my tribulations with it!

Personally I do not like the aircooled VW engines. I know they have their addicts. But I would be happy if I never had to work on one again.
Tinkering with BL A and B series engines is so much more gratifying!!
Yes, I am heeding what both you and @landowner and others are saying. It is a 50 year old Mini with A-Series technology with no ECU etc. etc. I only need to get it running sweet not "perfect". That'll do me fine. I am pleased to have got it with clean plugs and not wet, sooty fouled plugs. Further perseverance may be polishing a turd gilding the lily, so it is a good point to stop and smell the roses rather than the exhaust. :D
 
It is so flipping hot here that we can neither of us be bothered to go down to the pool.
This sounds mad, but we made the decision from the off to not have one you can nearly, or even probably, dive into from the living room french doors.

I'd like to swim later on, but W gets bitten by every bug in creation and then gets an allergic reaction to it, so that ain't happening.

Can't be bothered with the faff of getting changed, towels, pillow/mattress things for the sunbeds, lugging it all down then back up once finished.
We worked hard this morning I think that has something to do with it, also W has to change her stoma bag for one she can swim with then change it back to another type afterwards.
We've decided we will swim tomorrow as we have very little work to do then. Apple harvest being mostly done.
It is back up to 27 plus C inside the house and about 38 C outside in the shade, even now.
She loves the heat and has spent the arvo lying under a sunshade on a sun bed on the patio while I have been indoors in front of a fan on full blast!.

Steak for dins in a while, with one of our home grown onions as well as other home grown veg. Yum!
Have a good evening all! :):):)
 
Yes, I am heeding what both you and @landowner and others are saying. It is a 50 year old Mini with A-Series technology with no ECU etc. etc. I only need to get it running sweet not "perfect". That'll do me fine. I am pleased to have got it with clean plugs and not wet, sooty fouled plugs. Further perseverance may be polishing a turd gilding the lily, so it is a good point to stop and smell the roses rather than the exhaust. :D
As Stanleysteame says, keep tinkering and checking results over a measured distance
I used a lamp post as a marker then power to the fire station, passed the lamp post at 30mph in third and gunned it to the fire station, ,that's a real time rolling road, proper results after tinkering, doesn't even have to be flat road :)
 

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