poor running where to start ?

Thinking about the daft positioning of the Mk1 VVC coil pack & the difficulty of shifting the mounting bolts, has anyone fitted the later spark plug mounted packs?

I'm guessing that would be straightforward if the cam cover on the earier engines already has the threads in place over cylinders 1 and 3 to mount the later coil packs to. Though i assume even if not it could be worked around by fabricating mountings onto the underside of the top plastic cover.

Sorry for the delay in response to this thought, in fact nothing would have come of it if I hadn’t have a brain quake in an area of my cerebral cortex where I thought all tectonic action had ceased. My lad asked me to find a part in stores & I found a couple of tf coil packs & associate gubbins instead. The upshot is that the early rocker cover wouldn’t readily take the later packs without Frankenstein surgery. So I spent an entire £24 on the appropriate cover & I’ll report back after I’ve cleaned years of service history out of every pore & given it a flash over with satin black.

Here is the end result of that escapade, obviously it’s not fitted yet, that’ll wait until I return from a couple of weeks away. I hope it works, it should as all the circuit topography is the same.

That cam cover looks pristine. Does it have the mounts for the coil packs as it is or have you had to fabricate them ?

It's a reworked cover & correct for the coil packs. It was kacked up beyond cleaning it "in the sink", so my lad took it to his works & put it through the parts washer &'would have soda blasted it if some dick hadn't let the soda get damp. The last bit of prep was just clearing away the residue normally shifted by the soda, then a good clean & spray. The coils & HT leads had been slumbering in stores for a few years so they cleaned nicely, the LT cable is really an interseries adaptation between the old connector & the new, so when I do the job everything will plug up straight away. Once the system is proved & reliable, it will be grafted on to the engine management module. I'll keep you posted. I buy my connectors from 3Waycomp, their range is excellent; there may be suppliers who have a better range but I've not looked, they have always had what I want & I've wanted some odd stuff.