pimpin7

Okay no responded to my other post so I'll try and give it another shot. I can't for the life of me figure out why before I removed my motor I was getting perfect ignition spark from the coil packs. And now that I put a rebuilt motor in I can't get any spark.

If all the parts are good the only thing I can think of is I didn't connect something or a ground isn't getting ground properly. What controls the ignition pack spark? There is just one wire harness on the drivers side, that was removed with the engine. Is there anyway to test if it is a bad ground, by somehow grounding out the ignition pack to produce an artificial spark?

Thanks in advance,

tcb100

Pimpin, put a test light on the postive side of the coil and see if you have power.

The way the coil works is that power from the battery is creating a magnetic field as it flows from positive to negative side of the coil.

When interupted by the ignitor, the magnetic field is transformed into mucho volts so do you have interuption? Put the test light on the negative side and see if it flickers when you try to start the car.

If it flickers, that means your igniter is doing it's job, grounding the coil. If it doesn't then you have a problem with the igniter or with the "crank" position sensor.

There are two versons of the coil harness, one with a ground wire and one without. If you have the older version, make sure that "extra" wire is grounded.

pimpin7

TCB thanks for your time.

I am using a multimeter to test voltage and continuity, on each coil packs there is one single plug with two terminals. Each plug has a black and red wire that is on the bottom terminal of the plug.

The first coil pack (plug) has a red wire on top and bl/red wire on bottom.
The middle coil pack has a yellow/blue and bl/red.
The last coil pack closest to the cab has a blue with white wire, and again bl/red wire on bottom terminal.

Now here is the tricky part, I believe I have the old version of coil packs as you mentioned. On each of the two plug wires there is a shield wire wrapped around it, all three of these are conjoined together to a black wire with a loop to be grounded.

So from my understanding a coil pack produces a spark, just as if you would touch the positive and negative battery terminals together only the magnetic coils creates a more powerful voltage.

With the plugs inserted on to each coil pack, and the wires probed. I get voltage 12V on both wires top and bottom when the key is in the on position, on each coil pack. Once the key is kicked over to crank the voltage it dips a bit but is still around 12V agian on both top and bottom wire while plugged in, but no spark is produced. I have even tested the coil packs with one pin of the multimeter grounded and the other pin inside coil pack hole, and 0 voltage is produced when engine cranked.

pimpin7

Now I tested just the plugs, unplugged from the coils. On each end where the black and red wire is plugged 12 volts is produced, on the other end 0 volts produced. With multimeter grounded and inserted into the other end where 0 volts is produced only .04 volts are given when engine cranked.

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

You did connect the ground wire that's on the plug side of the block (not the one grounded on the coils)? I'd hate to ask the obvious, but without that wire grounded, you won't be able to start the car (don't ask how I know ).

pimpin7

Are you taking about the one wire directly under the coil packs, thats connected to the ecu harness? Or are you talking about the one that connects to the power steering bracket right next to the front rotor housing plugs?

Also not sure if it would make a difference but I am doing all of this testing with the Intake Manifold off, I don't think it would make a difference however. I don't believe anything off the Intake Manifold would relate to spark.

pimpin7

Yes to both, I guess I didn't notice when you said plug. Yes that is a single black wire that runs from the negative battery terminal to a bolt under the fuse box on the fender, to a greenish bracket that connects to the power steering bracket.

tcb100

Maybe you have already done this but let me offer it anyway. I think I have this right.

Your black and reds are power.

Stick a pin in there or a jumper wire to black and red. Put your positive meter lead on the black and red and your negative meter lead to ground. With the key on you should get around 12 volts. Do that to each coil. If you do you have power to your coils.

Turn off the key. Disconect the harness and check coil resistance. Set your meter to ohms. Touch your leads to each of the terminals the harness came off & you should get less than one ohm. If you do your primary circuit is OK. You are getting power that runs through the coil.

Next unplug the plug wires, don't get them mixed up. Again with the key off, touch the two high voltage terminals on the leading coil (where you took off the plug wires) togeher with your positive and negative lead. You should get 9 to 16 ohms. Repeat on the trailing coils, one lead to to high voltage terminal, the other to the top terminal where you connect up the coil harness, but here you should get OL or infinity.

At that point you have power, it is running through the coils and when the voltage is triggered, it ought to flow out of the coil.

Hook the plug wires back up.

Finally, your grounds are white and blue on the trailing rear, red on the trailing front and yellow and blue on the leading.

When your igniter triggers it, the ground is completed so you should get intermitant power so if you put your negative multimeter lead to ground and your red multimeter lead to white and blue, you shoulld get 12/0/12/0/12/0 as it shuts on and off. Repeat on each coil.

You are testing the igniter. If it's completing the ground circuit it it's going to bounce your voltage or flash a test light. I have only done it with a test light & that's pretty easy to see flashing.

There are only two other elements in the system. Your crank angle sensor is to feeding info to the ecu & the ecu is telling the igniter to turn on and off.

Once again what happens is the power flows through the primary circuit and gets interupted by the igniter. When power flows it creates a magnetic field and when the juice is shut off, that magnetic field is transformed into a bunch of voltage. The electricity flow has to be shut off by the igniter to turn 12 volts into 30,000 volts or whatever.

pimpin7

Oh man you are an electical genius. And a great asset to our rotary community, thanks so much TCB. Likewise Mahjik

pimpin7

Holy ****!! TCB you are the man! You are the freakin man!

Thank you thank you thank you x 1,000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000.

It turned out to be the crank angle sensor. I didn't want to get in there cuz its such a pain in the freaking butt to get to. But well it turns out a couple of the wires got cracked and wasn't making any contact.

I didn't believe that no connections to the crank angle sensor would disable spark! I read somewhere online that even if there wasn't any contact to the crank angle sensors that the computer would just retard timing and just enter in its own value for the spark. Well for anyone reading this in the future, let me tell you this if your crank angle sensors are unplugged or a wire breaks off I guarantee you that you aint gonna get no spark.

Thanks again TCB and Mahjik for all your help.

pimpin7

Wohooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rx7aholic

iTrader: (22)

That cramk angle sensor which is consider the g sensor if it's not plug in the car does not get spark, fuel and timing.

tcb100

Glad to be of help. God knows that ownership of these cars means we all need it sometime, from somebody, on some problem.

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

Good going Pimpin, enjoy the car!

flubyux2

bringing back the thread due to similar problms on my end.

we have weak/zero-spark issues w/ the front trailing coil.
Leading coil has perfect spark with Jacobs ign. amp
Rear trailing coil has perfect appearing spark w/ stock wiring.

is it possible the front trailing circuit inside the igniter has failed? with a spark tester, the gap between the points has to be smaller than 0.020" or 0.5mm to get a spark. meanwhile, the leading and rear trailing will jump a free-air gap of 10mm.

i tested the continuity on all terminals of the coil pack subharness. everything checks out and has less than 1ohm resistance. this subharness is the one that has the RFI sheilding and terminates at a ring termal for ground suppression.

i also tested the wiring between the igniter and the coil pack connectors on the sub-harness. all readings were less than 1 ohm.

i also pull 12v at all 3 power supply terminals at the coil pack subharness.

the front coil pack tests out fine, with both tests. running jumper leads to a 12v source and ground creates a normal spark when opening and closing continuity to ground. also, the resistance between the primary terminals on the front trailing coil pack is 0 ohms. there is Infinite resistance between the primary terminals and the secondary/high tension terminal of the front trailing pack.

anyone else think this problem is related to the igniter, not the coil pack?

i havent tested the wiring betwen the ignitor and the PFC since i dont have a tester w/ long-enough leads.

mad_7tist

fastest way to tell if the coil is going bad and check the wiring is to swap the connectors on the trailing coils

if the rear coil fires fine on the rear harness
put the rear harness on the front coil and see how it fires. if it looks weak the coil is bad. if it looks right the wiring etc for the front trailing coil may be at issue

flubyux2

hey broseph... yeah, i checked the entire subharness w/ a DVM as well as the wiring between the igniter and the coil packs, w/ the subharness connected.

i took 2 jumpers to the questionable coil pack and put one lead on the pos terminal, then took the ground lead and tapped it on the neg post of the battery. the spark was so weak, i had to close the free-air gap on the tester to about 0.020". it wouldnt jump any further than that. plus, the weak-*** spark i did get from that pack was dim and such. i did the same test on the rear pack and it made a much more intense spark at the tiny gap. i spread it out to about 8mm and it still jumped the gap. the leading is no problem. i put a tester on one lead from the leading wire, pull the other wire out, hoping that i could check just one post at a time. that was unsuccessful. the spark jumped out of the 2nd post and traveled about 1" and shorted to throttle cable.

i need to swap out the front trailing and probably these plugs too. this didnt start happening untill the plugs were swapped.