Are you supposed to have power at both coils when starting?
 

How are you guys doing. I've gotten back to getting my 1985 GS Bridge ported 12a with a Holley 650 back on the road for the first time in 5 yrs. I haven't had the pleasure of driving it since I brought it.

I recently took it to my local speed shop and they told me I have to rebuild it so I brought it back home till I can save up the money to do the motor, $2300 is the estimate. I placed RX7 back in the garage to start buying all the parts before I send it to the speed shop to get rebuilt. My question is should I have power at both coils when turning the motor?

New to the rotary scene but want to hook mine up for my sons.. :)


Thanks...

Wecome to the site. If you're referring to ignition coils & cranking engine over,yes. Should have 12 volts at coils in ig. key run/crank positions. Place to start: there are three fuselinks attached to bracket on left side fenderwell,check with test light,multimeter.

Thanks!!!!! GSLEforme I'm only getting spark at one of the ignition coils. I'll take a look at your suggestions with my multimeter. Thanks again :) More questions to follow..lol...I'll also post up some pics as well.

If you have 12 volts at(primary=screw terminals) on one coil you should have it at other also as fed from same circuit. Black/yellow pretty sure. If you don't,start tracing the wire back. You could put a jumper between both +12 volt coil terminals to feed other coil for testing and crank to check spark. Am thinking you may have a different problem if only one coil is sparking,may be an igniter problem causing this.

You can switch one igniter with the other,both located on distributor and see if you now have spark at the coil that previously didn't. If so the igniter you switched is bad.

Thanks I'll try it this weekend. My mechanic said I needed a rebuild and is going to charge me $2210.00 to replace all the seals and get my motor back up and running but not sure if I need it. Once I get it on hopefully I can get a better diagnostic. Thanks again for the advise GSLSEforme!!!!!

With the troubleshooting performed it looks like it's one of the igniters as when I swapped around the igniters the other coil lost power. Now it there a way to troubleshoot these igniters?

There is, but switching igniter essentially confirms it is defective. If when switched you have spark at coil that previously did not and when switched back the other coil has spark again about 100% sure that's problem. Replace igniter and make sure thermal paste is put on back side when installed. That's what all the white stuff on dist. body and back of igniter is. One step closer to running car!

Cool thank you!!!! I've replaced the igniters and now both of them have spark I'll also put some thermal paste on them as well. More troubleshooting to come. I also checked the fuse links on the fender wall and all three were still good.