is the trailing ignition engaged all the time or just when decelerating?

i'm still trying to figure out why my tach doesn't work.

i replaced the coils (i was gonna do that anyway), and tested the ignition with a timing light. the leading coil worked, but the trailing coil didn't make the light go blinky. does it just happen when the engine decelerates?

bleh.

also, what's the easiest way to get to behind the gauge cluster? i wanna make sure the tach is still connected.

 

I don't know how to get behind an RX-7 guage cluster.

So your Trailing didn't go blinky eh? You probably have a messed up Trailing ignitor. Swap it into the Leading position and see if the engine will start and run.

Better yet, hook the tach signal wire to the - (negative) of the Leading coil.

I think only the '80 model had a semi-on Trailing ignition (which Mazda engineer was smoking crack when they designed that one?).

 

i replaced both of 'em with new parts (was gonna do it anyway).

no blinky afterwards.

 

Well, you've got me (I'm stumped).

 

Pull your cap and rotor and check the pickup wires under the dust cover to see if they are damaged.

 

The Tach works of the trailing ignitor. If you have replaced everything else and still don't have tach, chances are that your trailing ignitor is bad. Also, if your trailing ignitor is bad you car should be runing less than optimal performance. Your ignitor is probably the one cause. I had the same problem, I replced the trailing ignitor and everything went back to normal....

 

ok - i'm still pretty new to working on my car: does ignitor = ignition coil? if so, i've replaced both with new parts. i wonder if maybe my wire from the coil to the distributor is bad...

 

The trailing ignitor is attached to the dizzy. it is held in by one screw that actually goes through the ignitor. The bottom (if you will) of the ignitor is where the clip is plugged into. I forget exactly which ignitor is for the trailing. I think the one closest to the rear of the car (double check). The ignitors are about 2"x1" in size.

Follow the wiriing to the dizzy and you have no choice but to find them. If you still have problems, I'll try and take some pics of them and if you have a haynes manual, there is a section on how to test the ignitor.

Anyone have the site that had the haynes diagram on it?

Let me know.

 

Your problem is your trailing ignitor fromt he distributor. I had the same problem with my 82 gsl. Go to the junkyard and pull an ignitor off of a car. Leading and trailing are the same so it doesn't matter which one you pull. The trailing one is the one that you have to remove the alternator to get to. Swap it out and you will have a tach again. My 82 only backfired a little bit when my trailing went bad. Otherwise it ran fine. But my tach was dead.

 

I'll go with everyone else trailing ignitor pretty much for certain. That was my problem the car also likely runs badly. There are lots of ways I was told to check them but... get a timing light and see if you have spark on the trailing side you likely do not.

Jim

 

heh, you boys w/o an ECU are lucky! when my trailing ignitor went out (in traffic, at 80MPH, in the middle lane I might add) the car STOPPED. Since the ECU uses the tach line to tell if the car is running or not, it assumed it wasn't and stopped sending fuel to the motor. Ugh, that was a bad morning.

The ignitor is located on the dizzy. The leading one is up front, the trailing one is to the back of the housing. On mine there's 2 screws, holding it to the housing. Unclip the harness that goes in the top, unscrew the ignitor and then unclip the pickup harness on the back of it. There's a test in the haynes manual for it. If it's shot, there's usually one or two on e-bay. I picked one up for like 20$.

The coils and the ignitors are different, we have seperate ignitors, where the 2nd and 3rd gen guys have integrated coil packs with ignitors.

Hope that helps.

--matt

 

You can try Ebay for ignitors. That's where mine came from. I paid 25.00 for mine. DO NOT phone a Mazda dealer, unless you have a printing press for money in the basement. I was quoted 557.40 in cdn dollars for one. (he recommended I replace both) Good Luck

Jim

 

I'd be much obliged if someone were to post a pic of what i'm looking for. My haynes manual said that the ignitors are located on the driver's side fender - hence my confusion as to coils=ignitors.

can anyone hook me up with a part number for a replacement, too?

thanks for your help, guys.

 

Ok Im a mechanic and love 7's, coils are on the drivers fender igniters are on the dist. the one the front(closest to the radiator is the leading the one by the alt. is the trailing). the tach. is run by the trailing(closest to the alt.)2 little phillips screws hold it on replace this and your tach will work and your 7 will run normal. ps you can get em from a junk yard for about 5.$.

 

What year is your car? 79/80 had the ignitors on the fender......


Here ya go.... happened to have the haynes manual handy....

On p250 there is an exploded view of the disassembling an engine.

The diagram show the dizzy out and labeled #18. That label point directly to (and shows you were it is mounted) the ignitor on the dizzy.

Another picture of the ignitor is on pg283. Check it out and you should have a better idea of what's going on.

 

Add some heat sink paste from Radioshack to the back of your ignitor before you install it. It helps the ignitor pass heat to the dizzy housing to keep the ignitor cool

 

thanks for your help guys (and Mark). i'll be recieving a pair of ignitors in a few days.

i'll undoubtedly have more questions when it comes time to install them.

 

The pull straight off the side of the Dizzy, I believe.

Clean the contacts on the new ones well and shoot a little contact cleaner in the holes that the ignitor plugs into.

Also clean off the surface under the ignitor for effective heat transfer...

Don't slather em in heat transfer grease, just a thin layer. Kinda paint it on with your finger. It's designed to fill microscopic grooves in the metal surface, so too much actually acts like an insulator and bars heat transfer.