ignition trouble - 1600

["Steve Schaeffer" <borrani@xxxxxxx>]

Hello All,
    I put Turner in the garage after a wonderful track day, engine ran
perfectly.  I drove it to work today and the engine just ran flat awful, it
would idle, but wouldn't pull worth a damn, felt like a spark plug was
completely fouled, she'd accelerate but buck and hesitate, pretty much
running on 3 it sounded like.  So, under load, it suffered, but at constant
throttle OK.  I haven't changed anything since I put the car away.  What
could have catastrophically failed?  I removed the distributor and checked
point gap, it's ok, the timing hasn't slipped, I tried to rotate the
distributor but could not, so it hasn't moved.  Combined with this I ran her
out of gas, so I coasted to the gas station and put in 12.44 gallons, a new
record.  I expected her to run better after this, and she did, but still not
cleanly at high rpm, she's still not pulling at her best.  I'm wondering if
running her so low on gas got a bunch of crud in the gas filter.  I've
started looking at the basics, the spark plugs are virtually new, I removed
and cleaned them, they looked a tad rich, but not bad, the spark plug leads
are on securely.
    It's a bit inconsistent, after letting her cool for a couple hours ( I
saw the band 'Garbage' this evening) I drove her home and she can pull
decently in 1st and 2nd but hesitates a bit in 3rd.  Do ignition coils just
go bad?
    I'm certainly hoping on taking Turner to our NWARC road trip to Astoria,
OR this weekend, any advice afore I go under the car again?

Many Thanks,

Steve S.
'67 GTV 1600
Seattle, WA

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