I've fixed the problem, but thought I'd post what happened in case someone else has similar symptoms.
1995 D1 with distributor
First signs were hard starting when "cold" (temperature under 50F). I could remedy this somewhat by advancing the timing 30+ degrees (by remedy, I mean I could start the engine after advancing the timing). In warmer weather (60s) it started fine.
After a week or so, the poor beast had trouble idling; the rpms would drop, almost stall, then drop... a quick blip on the throttle at the red lights kept it running.
In an attempt to fix this, i tried fiddling with the timing, cleaning the IAC, screwing around with the base idle, and other fruitless endeavors, including new air and fuel filters.
A new set of plug wires seemed to help things a bit, but I noticed they kept popping off the distributor, so I bought some new wires, distributor cap and rotor online.
While waiting for the parts to arrive, I took my red-top back to the parts store, they checked it and it was bad, and I drove home with new red-top.
A day later or so, parts arrived, and I put a new cap, rotor, and plug wires. A quick drive around the block indicated things were running smoothly, and I parked in the driveway to recheck the timing, idle speed, etc.
But the engine still wouldn't idle. After restarting several times, finally the engine just would not start again.
I went through troubleshooting, using voltmeter, ohmmeter, and fuel pressure gauge. Everything seemed "OK". After a while, I hooked my timing light up, and was dismayed to notice no flashing when cranking. So I cleaned all the grounds for the ignition system, but still no spark.
I hooked an old plug wire with a spark plug on it to the coil, grounded the spark plug, cranked away and got some spark. However, attaching that plug wire to the distributor and then cranking (I did hook a coil wire from the coil to the distributor cap) produced no spark, sending me off on a time-consuming swapfest with several different caps, rotors, and coil wires.
Somewhere along the line, I stopped gettting any spark whatsoever. I tried putting in a previous amplifier, same result, no spark at all, even when connecting directly to the coil.
Put in another order to the parts purveyor for a coil and amplifier. When they arrived a few days later, I first fitted the new amplifier. Now back to weak spark from the coil (I could get the coil wire to spark if I held it 1mm away from a ground, any farther and no spark).
Since I had the new coil, I fitted that as well, and suddenly the engine is firing on all cylinders.
Hopefully this little tale mostly ineffective troubleshooting will inspire others to rise above my level of incompetence.
1995 D1 with distributor
First signs were hard starting when "cold" (temperature under 50F). I could remedy this somewhat by advancing the timing 30+ degrees (by remedy, I mean I could start the engine after advancing the timing). In warmer weather (60s) it started fine.
After a week or so, the poor beast had trouble idling; the rpms would drop, almost stall, then drop... a quick blip on the throttle at the red lights kept it running.
In an attempt to fix this, i tried fiddling with the timing, cleaning the IAC, screwing around with the base idle, and other fruitless endeavors, including new air and fuel filters.
A new set of plug wires seemed to help things a bit, but I noticed they kept popping off the distributor, so I bought some new wires, distributor cap and rotor online.
While waiting for the parts to arrive, I took my red-top back to the parts store, they checked it and it was bad, and I drove home with new red-top.
A day later or so, parts arrived, and I put a new cap, rotor, and plug wires. A quick drive around the block indicated things were running smoothly, and I parked in the driveway to recheck the timing, idle speed, etc.
But the engine still wouldn't idle. After restarting several times, finally the engine just would not start again.
I went through troubleshooting, using voltmeter, ohmmeter, and fuel pressure gauge. Everything seemed "OK". After a while, I hooked my timing light up, and was dismayed to notice no flashing when cranking. So I cleaned all the grounds for the ignition system, but still no spark.
I hooked an old plug wire with a spark plug on it to the coil, grounded the spark plug, cranked away and got some spark. However, attaching that plug wire to the distributor and then cranking (I did hook a coil wire from the coil to the distributor cap) produced no spark, sending me off on a time-consuming swapfest with several different caps, rotors, and coil wires.
Somewhere along the line, I stopped gettting any spark whatsoever. I tried putting in a previous amplifier, same result, no spark at all, even when connecting directly to the coil.
Put in another order to the parts purveyor for a coil and amplifier. When they arrived a few days later, I first fitted the new amplifier. Now back to weak spark from the coil (I could get the coil wire to spark if I held it 1mm away from a ground, any farther and no spark).
Since I had the new coil, I fitted that as well, and suddenly the engine is firing on all cylinders.
Hopefully this little tale mostly ineffective troubleshooting will inspire others to rise above my level of incompetence.