Got the car fired yesterday, but not without some problems. Its an FD running PS2K with mercury marine coils

When zeroing the timing with the injectors turned off there was consistent spark at a tooth offset of 10. At 11 offset the spark was inconsistent or not sparking at all. The timing was able to be zeroed with a trgger angle of 81 and offset of 10 (when tested off the L1 plug wire with timing locked at -5 & 15). Enable the injectors and there is no more spark. Reduce the trigger angle to 67 and the spark returns. Timing is out by about 10 degrees here but the car will start. With the car running the trigger angle can then be reset to the 81 degrees needed to zero it out. Bring the car up to 3000rpm and there is maybe 1 degree of variation in the timing mark, basically no timing drift. Shut the car off and try to refire there is no spark. change things back to 67/10 and spark returns, once running I can change it to 81/10 with no problems once the car is running.

What could cause the spark to dissapear like this? If possible I would like to run the 65-67 / 11 that everyone reccomends but it wont spark on that tooth offset.

 

Problem kinda solved. Should have been checking timing with T1 not L1. However this stil doesnt explain why it wouldnt spark at all under the right conditions, shouldnt the haltech fire spark no matter what?

 

You can check the spark with L1 or T1. If L1 you need to run a -20 leading trigger lock setting (if engine will run stable). If you want to check with T1 set Leading to -5 and 15 for split which gets you back to the 20 deg mark on the crank pulley. My crank angle also was odd at 10 teeth 67 angle for zero. Couldn't get the standard angles to zero.

You may have been outside the window of controllable spark with your initial settings. The Haltech does require a certain amount of time in order to fire after seeing a trigger.

 

https://www.rx7club.com/haltech-forum-62/haltech-e8-timing-shifting-cranking-vs-running-893680/

i also have found its 10/65 on a stock FC CAS stab,, a few times now !

 

you know im having the same problem with a PS1000 on my subaru. but i havent tried changing trigger count numbers. i spent 2 weeks troubleshooting it and gave up on it, now its just sitting in the driveway lol. it ran fine for a year, then i switched from subaru coils with separate ignitor to a later subaru coil pack with built-in ignitors. Now i cant get consistent spark, even with the old coil/ignitor set. however ive seen both work, but very inconsistent. i get rpm so i know its not a pickup problem

 

The change in ignition system may've caused a noise problem on the trigger harness.

B

 

or there is a missmatch in the ignition polarity and dwell setups
me thinks old igniters dumb,, new igniters smart dwell sensing

 

but i even tried going back to the old coil (which worked previously for a year) and still had problems. i tested both coils on with a bench power supply, and i get spark with + voltage on the trigger pins, so i know polarity is correct. not sure about if it is a dumb/smart ignitor though. anyway to tell?

weird thing is while messing around with it and trying different things (i have tried two separate newer-style coils) i would get spark, then turn off the car to get the timing light, turn back on and back to no spark! very frustrating!


i posted this thread over on the haltech forum, but they havent been much help

http://forums.haltech.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5623



sorry to thread jack