Ignition Coils GSL-SE Intermittent Death
 

My -SE keeps dying after a few minutes of idle whenever it feels like it, it left me blocking traffic before work yesterday after i thought it wanted to behave.

After getting it home later on in the dark of the night i noticed one coil was sparking from the +/- posts to the stem where the wire to the distributor plugs in. It would only begin to spark after idling for a while, they would get more frequent then it would cut out. I tried cleaning up the connections and posts but the threading on the posts are gone, i figure swapping a new set of coils and insulating the connections better will fix this. Thinking this will settle my jumpy tach as well. What do you think, should i go straight for this direct fire injection or tfi coils or whatever? I'm cheap, considering buying 2 of the 20$ universal 12v unresisted coils on ebay and seeing how she goes. One accel coil is $50 bucks here, guess i could make a trip to the pick n pull but new is better. Let me know if im going to frig something up.

Yep you have a coil issue. If you mount the coils horizontally just make sure they are designed
for that or they will leak the oil out eventually.

Redoing your ignition is not a bad idea. There are several examples of various ways to do a DFIS
setup that will work much better than the stock setup. I'm not sure if there are caveats for doing
this on an SE but the SE still uses the same dizzy, ignitors and coils setup so I expect its still
applicable.

The SE has an ignition pulse counter wire on the trailing coil (-) terminal (look for a coaxial/shielded cable). When you upgrade to direct fire, make sure this wire is still there (hooked up) so the ECU knows what's going on. That's the only caveat for an SE I can think of!

To get you running until then, try replacing your coil lead wires and using some dielectric grease on the metal contacts inside the rubber boot where it connects to the coil center electrode.

The reason why you see arcing is that the high tension electricity is finding a path of less resistance from your post to the power leads, than through the high tension coil lead to the distributor where it belongs. Your coils may be just fine - as evidenced by the arcing - and all you need are new coil leads. Might as well replace all the plug wires while you're at it, as they all came out of the same pack. In your case, when the arc starts (*and I'm betting it's on the trailing coil which provides injector timing pulse signal to the ECU) it quickly overpowers the ECU which shuts down injector pulse, killing the engine.

Let us know if that fixes it, as I'm sure we're all curious. If that's it, we just saved you $100!

Ahh yes thanks for your input, basically everyone i could hope for has chimed in. I'm considering the tfi route if i can't work around this, but as longduck says i feel like it could be just a matter of making a proper connection to the coil.

Previous owner replaced the spark plugs and wires all around, but i will try the dielectric grease. The one that I saw sparking was leading with the white spade connector not blue it certainly is causing a problem with the injector timing pulse though, that has to be what is telling the ecu to kill the engine it just dies doesnt want to start anymore. Tach doesn't want to move when cranking , i know its able to run when i first cleaned everything up it had never ran smoother, no pulsing at part throttle like i had hoped for. Though the tach was still being jumpy.

Only problem i see is the stripped posts, if i insulate connections properly i still wont be able to tighten it all down unless i can rethread them but that sounds like more effort than its worth if it doesn't fix the issue. I have replaced all my grounds and wires to the starter so i think the extra power transfer is whats making this uglyness show itself. Either way, i'll keep you all updated on my progress. Thanks again guys

Hey guys progress since last night. Cleaned up all the connections again didn't get around to getting the dielectric grease but i just checked for spark to the plugs and i'm getting spark fine to both leading plugs but nothing to the trailing. Does this further confirm that the trailing coil is the issue? My tach doesn't budge and no spark to the trailing. I tried from the coils to the dizzy and from the dizzy to the plugs, switched plug wires to make sure but no dice i think my trailing coil has bit the dust. Like you say if the ignition pulse counter isn't getting a signal (like if the trailing coil wasn't creating a spark) theres no way that it will start. Just like LongDuck had suspected, it must be trailing. How can i test the coil to ensure it is dead? I will likely get a new coil shortly regardless. Any input is appreciated.

Swap the coils. It could also be the trailing igniter.

Good call, i have yet to swap all wires just the center ones from the coil to the dizzy. If the tach moves then i'm in business otherwise its the ignitor?

So I switched the coils around and I still only get leading spark no trailing tach doesnt move. Ive got not clue now, but thanks for the advice Kansas. Ruled out my theories hopefully you guys can help me out.

Try swapping the igniters on the dizzy.

Right as I go to take the first screw off I see one of the plugs to the ignitors has one of the spades slipped beside it so I plugged it in properly and it started right up tach working and all like before it starts up like nothing when it wants to but dies right away.
Ran great for a minute in that time I checked and was getting leading and trailing spark but then the original problem came back, died out quickly wouldnt start again. On cranking was only getting leading spark again. Swapped coils around again and no change still just leading. I havent swapped the ignitors yet, its getting late now. Maybe tomorrow morning, but were making some progress. I think lol

You have a bad trailing J109 igniter.

Swapping igniters is the troubleshooting step, but I think you've already nailed it. The one time I lost Trailing ignitor, I was able to limp it to a car show by moving the ECU injection spade to the leading coil to get the injectors working. The timing of injector pulses was off, but close enough to get it to start and run. You'll want to swap it back where it belongs after you replace the coil or ignitor, obviously - but it's an easy field fix to get you home.

I jumped the two neg. Posts on the coils got leading & trailing spark and the tach started to move again, sounds like it wants to start but must be flooded as all hell. I will definitely be doing a direct fire set up in the near future, most likely the tfidfis.

I tried again jumping straight to the blue trailing female plug off the extra male on the neg side of leading coil. Started up all nice nice things were much better like you say could have probably got me back from wherever i was but it just in my garage. Was just running on leading (since trailing wasn't connected) from cold then when the engine heated up the ignitor(s) must be getting too hot & it still cuts everything out. You figure if it's warm it should start better but the opposite is true here, and that must be why its so all over the place its getting heat soaked.

Nope, ignitors start failing when they get hotter. Makes for a very interesting chase to find the
problem. Car starts fine when cold, runs well then ... kaput. Now that its hot it wont restart
either. Then it cools ... and it starts. Very frustrating. I went through this when my SA until it
got so bad it had symptoms like you are having. Thats when I did the TFI coil setup.

When installing new ignitors, make sure to use some of the computer heat sink paste. This will ensure good heat transfer.

I cant wait to redo the ignition now. I will head to the junk yard this week. What vehicles would I be looking for to scavenge the tfi coils? I heard late 80s ford f350, whatelse should i look for? And for the hei ignitors? Would rather spend less and look a little more lol

All the answers are in my TFI link in my signature. You just want to use solid state
coils, the Ford TFI or the GM E coils for v8s should do fine. I used the ford ones from
F150s with v8s in them. Take a DVM with you so you can make sure you get good
coils.

You really want the 4 prong HEI modules but you can also use the 7 pin ones
as well. The details on wiring them up is a little different. The 4 prongs are cheap
enough that you could just buy them at the autoparts superstores and be
confident you have good ones.

I don't think anyone has done an SE that I know of so post up in my thread with
an SE related details to help out other folks.

Well I just finished up the tfidifis and it still wont start. Gets lead spark (obviously) but im only gettin trailing to the dizzy not to the plugs and turns over just fine but will not run. I am using my old leading j109 as my trailing ignitor still. Is that the issue? Im a little irked, What else could it be now?

It's kind of hard to determine if the issue was something that was broken before the change to tfidifis or after. I'll always suggest to get it running in the original configuration before changing things over.

Yea I get that but here I am thinking its my ignition thats the problem butbi just found out im getting no fuel. My pump is whirring but im getting just a squirt of fuel when I flick on my pump switch then nothing. The left fuel line was very pressurized when we took them off but no fuel. Im going to check the filter, pump, and ive heard of a small inline filter between the tank and the pump. I was told the filters were done last year, can anyone tell me if this is the stock fuel pump?
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...d6d68e6725.jpg


Is this the stock gsl-se fuel pump?<br/>

Dude, you're really not focusing on the issue at hand. We mentioned that you have a bad J109 ignitor already, but you don't seem to have gone through the troubleshooting to be sure of this, and... Discard the bad one. Instead, you switched to installing an ignition setup that is non-stock, not commonly used, and relies on the same ignitors from above to work.

See the problem? Digging into a fuel system when the car was running fine before and had no fuel problems is barking up the wrong tree. We're wanting to help out, but doing this over the innerwebs is going to be problematic if you keep flitting to different problems.

Longduck I know I had a bad trailing j109 I swapped them around to check qnd yes you were right my trailing ignitor is toast so I put in the good lead j109 in its place and its good I did that before I started the tfidfis just didnt post anything my bad. i've got spark to leading and trailing now (didnt for a while today but fixed that) and it still wont start. Pretty sure sparks not my problem anymore or if it ever really was. I guess I should make a new thread but I feel like im flooding the 1st gen section lol.

I dont mean to be a pain, im not the most mechanically inclined guy but im trying. I actually think I did the tfidfis pretty well. I get a really strong spark now, but im not getting any fuel through the lines even when I use my fuel pump switch which would be what the original problem was in the first place, or rather two problems in one nice package. I just assumed it was flooded before foolishly, never checked for fuel pressure. Sorry im all over the place but thats what the last few days have been for me. Hahah bear with me guys