my mini coil that doesn't work

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Robert by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <obiwan1186-at-sunflower-dot-com>

I've been working on my mini coil for a while now and i just can't seem 
to get much performance out of it. the best I can do right now is 5" 
arcs to ground with 15/30 input. here are the specs.

primary: 15 degree slanted primary with 9 turns. taps at about 5

secondary: 1.5 by 12 wound with 1000 turns of 30 guage wire. bottom turn 
is grounded to bottom turn of the primary. i've tried grounding it to an 
RF ground, attaching it to the primary works just as good.

capacitor: .0015 geek mmc bank

gap: tcbor gap cooled with 120 cfm fan hooked up to variac. (the fan 
improves performance a little, but not much.)

topload: small dryer duct bent into a torroid and covered in aluminum tape.

you can see some pictures at:

http://www.angelfire-dot-com/ks3/tesla1186/minisetup.jpg              -   
picture of the whole set up (it's a really big picture)
http://www.angelfire-dot-com/ks3/tesla1186/miniprim.jpg               -   
primary coil with razor blade tap
http://www.angelfire-dot-com/ks3/tesla1186/minigap.jpg                -   
spark gap
http://www.angelfire-dot-com/ks3/tesla1186/mmc.jpg                    -   
mmc bank
http://www.angelfire-dot-com/ks3/tesla1186/minitoground.jpg        -   arcs 
to ground  (it's also a huge picture)
http://www.angelfire-dot-com/ks3/tesla1186/miniglobe.jpg             -    my 
plasma globe setup (another big one)

is there anything i can do to improve performance? thanks a bunch
Robert