This is a 81 with a 12A engine.

I recently got back my car from a idiot machanic who lost the key and tore the hell out of the ignition switch. I bought one off of ebay a year ago to replace the one that wasnt working well anyway. Now the wires didnt exactly match up but I found a mate for all of them the only thing that was odd was to actually get it to work I had to splice the yellow and black and black and white from the car harness to a single wire off the igniton. The old one was a SL-7 the new a SL-6. Im pretty sure I got everything correct Turn to on idiot lights come on, turn the key the starter fires up and idiot lights are still on everything seems cool. No spark now. And the tac doesnt move when its cranking.

Now before anyone goes and tells me do a search I did that and I found a whole bunch of stuff but I have a few questions.

First off I have checked the engine fuse. It does do the clicking thing when I turn it on. I havent been able to check the relay, as I have nobody else here and am not really sure wich one it is anyway.



A series of questions.

As I said Im sure I got the ignition lock wired right. I did however have two extra wires left over. Is it possible that one of these extra wires powers the coils somehow off the switch? Doesnt seem like it would all that smart to me. All the wires coming from the harness on the old car are accounted for they all go somewhere.

With the key in the on position should there be power going to the coils wether or not the car is actually runnin? And if this is the case is it possible to hardwire the coils right to the batterey and get power to the coils?

Since I used the coils themselfs to test for a spark the ignitors couldnt be a problem would they?

And once agian I did do a search can someone explain to me how to troubleshoot this without all the acronyms? Im not an experinced machanic as a matter of fact this is the first car I have really worked on and Im having fun up until the idiot that I had work on it ripped me off and left me a car in peices.

 

And I have to add this, I rember the machanic saying that it had no spark. And something about having it started and it just dyin. Now when I went to go pick it up after putting the critter back toether it started up and now no starty

 

that really sucks man, that mechanic wuld be gone if he ever did that to my car, sorry to hear.

 

Oh I have plans

Anyone out there that can help me? At the moment the one real important question is can I temporarly wire the coils direct to the battery without permanet damage to the rest of the electrical system to get it started.

 

I would suggest before you go hard wiring coils, that you determine for sure if you are getting power to them with the key in the "run" position. Check the wires going to the + side of the coils. No spark does not automatically mean no coil.

 

I did that there is no power to the + on the coil. And when I move the lead from the tester to the battery terminal it reads correctly wich means the - is cool but they are bolth not getting +.

 

With the key in "run" the lead on the + of the coil should read voltage if no voltage there, you need to follow that wire. you probably have a break/short. The tac isn't going to work if there is no voltage to the coils either. Do you have an FSM? look at the ignition and find the wire that powers to the coils, check that against the wires you have to your key switch. First, just to be sure you didn't wire this to a wrong lead, turn the key to acc. then check the coil +. Maybe you just wired it to the acc, not the run circuit.

 

If you have a meter, did you check the coils resistance? you should have 1.35 ohms-+ 10% on each.

 

whats a FSM?

Yea I was thinking of tracing everything backwards, thing is I dont see how I could wire the thing any other way. Like I said the new one has two extra wires, but all the wires from the old one are accounted for. Im not so sure that the problem is with the new switch as the idiot machanic said that it didnt have any spark, and that when he was driving it on a test it just died. But then I was able to start it and drive it home. This sounds like a intermettent problem.

Anyway. I was planning on taking the positive leads off the coils and wire straight to the battery with a inline fuse there as a temporary thing just to get the thing runnin so I can move it. I just need to know if this is gonna burn out the coils or if it is going to work. I can trace the problem later just dont want to have to work on the thing out in the street.

 

FSM- Factory Service Manual.

If I were going to wire anything direct it would be done throug a relay of some sort and then have another wire running to the on-position wire of the switch. Just to be safe.

 

FSM= factory service manual ......... THE BIBLE for rx7 owners. you can download yours freee here..... http://foxed.ca/foxed/index.php?page=rx7manual#firstgen

 

If you have to.... I would definately use a relay as ArmyOfOne stated. If you wire it wrong, you'll end up with more problems than you have already

 

I cant read these schematics in the manual. Can someone tell me if eventually the coil wire ends up at the ignition keylock?

And wich one of these relays do the coils run through right now? And are they the only thing that does.?

 

Yes, the coils do run from the ignition switch.... Just a sec. let me pull up the 81 sheet and look.

 

can you post a link to the 81 schematics? I have the 82

 

Nevermind I found it.

I can tell where the wires go but from the looks of this it looks like the power goes through the ignitors and then to the coils? Or is it the other way around?

Like I said I cant read schematics that well.

 

Ok if you look at this diagram section of your car, there is a Black wire w/white stripe that runs from the coils to the ignition. It comes out at a 2 prong plug near your ignition (small pic/top left) one wire is Black with white stripe the other is white with red stripe. black one is coils.

 

They "share" power.

 

Where does the black one with the yellow stripe go off the key switch?

 

im not getting the hang of reading these things the black yellow goes to the alternator and the starter wtf?

 

Relax, you got it right... it does go to the starter and Alt.

 

and if I rember right the white red was paired with the black yellow and the blue was paired with the black white. The graphic you have up there has it backwards.

Okay so the black yellow provides the power to the selinoid on the starter. And the black white provides the power to the engine?

The white red provides power to bolth?


And where is this relay for the coils everone keeps talking about?

 

There is no relay..... that was a suggestion to use since you were talking about direct wiring the coils to the battery.

The BY "engages" the starter via the keyswitch "start" position, the other BY changes to BW down the line and does go to the alternator, but the alt only needs to turn to "create" power, the battery "powers" the car to start, then the alt can run the car. WR is the alt charging the battery.

 

Assuming your key switch is correctly wired, it sounds like you have a loose wire/connection between the coil and the ignition switch. Your going to have to strip the loom back from the coils toward the firewall and find where your break/loose connection is.