I agree timing should be checked with the light. I also had a phone conversation with OP and he had mentioned the car was TUNED by a shop, so I figured at least the timing was set (with a light) to be 100%, so that's why I figured the numbers I suggested would improve the starting. Apparently the shop screwed up the ignition settings...

I got my marks (and brain) backwards because his pulley he painted the mark on the right RED

I think we can all collectively fix this.

 

Absolutely. I always have to refer to the FSM to remember which mark is which, even though when you think about the crank spinning where the marks should be would totally make sense.

It takes a village sometimes. I got the advance/retard part wrong and bumpstart had to correct that. You'd figure as long as people have been doing this it would be a little more straight forward.

 

all good, no insults intended, mr ludwig is highly respected at this end for his quality guidence

we all have a brain farts

the pulley marks get mixed up in convo and not everybody can grasp the trigger tooth and trigger angle /CAS workings straight up
here the pics told 1000 words
it is plain the ignition setup and timing zero is all wrong

correct the trigger edge issue , go through the timing zero procedure again

aim to have a working trigger angle around the desired 60 degrees
if the trigger angle number is too low,, select one less on the trigger tooth count and add 30 to your triggger angle
ie=== 10/90 is the same as 11/60 and 12/30

remember there is also physical adjust on the CAS base if required

 

thanks guys. ill try and get this sorted asap...i'm sure i'll have more questions later but thanks for the help

 

UPDATE: I got the timing zero'd. turns out my pulley and hub didnt match so I went with the RB pulley. the issue seems to be that I am not getting spark from the leading coil. I have tried 3 so far and none are working. I am getting voltage to the coil and it seems to be sending a ground from the haltech. I'm going to take another look at it tomorrow and maybe try a fourth coil. that's where i'm at now

 

Timing lights can be funny. Sometimes a coil, plug, and wire will be fine and you won't get a strobe. If the plug is fouled, you might not get a strobe. Put a fresh plug in the plug wire and rest the plug on the intake or the fender. Somewhere where it gets a good ground. Crank the engine. By doing it this way you can visually confirm the plug is firing while trying to get a strobe with the timing light.

 

we ended up changing the haltech to make the trailing coil fire the same as the leading coil and set the timing that way. we used a test light, i used a different tester when i got home, and i held a wire very close to the coil and neither would produce spark at the leading coil

 

when I found it impossible to eventually start my car, it wound up being a bad leading coil. Mine would crank and crank and sometimes sputter, or let out a huge after-fire. It might have caught, but quickly died. Took me a LONG time to figure that one out because I was looking at everything else.

 

on twin post coils you have to put the timing light on the correct HT post wire
else they may not see the spark,, or they may trigger at the wrong time

issue relates with the fact that on these coils one spark jumps from engine earth to anode,, other from anode to engine earth

as is haltech should be dropping out the trailing coil while under the cranking rpm threshold,, and is also batch firing the injectors

sounds to me that you may have the wrong wire out to each coil , check please

 

will check that also, thanks

 

PS
be sure the ignition setup is set to "distributer mode" when using stock coils
this can alter the config of the ignition driver and aux output wiring colours
so you have to be sure you used the wiring setup diagram that is for your config

 

great, thanks

 

here is the install diagram i used:


here are my ignition and trigger setups:



here are my coils:



I have the greenish haltech ignition wire going to the pink wire on the coils. i am using the factory power wire on the light green coil wire and i do see 12v with the key to "on"

 

sooooo.....i swapped out the coil. again. this would be the fourth leading coil. and i am finally getting spark! the light on my shitty harbor freight tester is coming on, very dimly, but it is coming on. i am going to get a better tester tomorrow but i'm hoping this makes the car run that much better.

one more question, would i have to re-tune the fuel or ignition maps since i have been running on just the trailing coil?

 

That's odd... 3 dead leading coils? Maybe finally after 20+ years, the coils are starting to "die out". Does it start fine? See how it runs with a known working (albeit entire ignition system) leading coil. After that's 100% you will know if it needs a retune.

 

i still had to crank it a bit but didnt mess with it much. ill have more time this weekend

 

You think your tuner would have caught a dead coil. When mine runs on trailing only, its very noticeable..

 

it seemed to run fine on the trailing only...would just sometimes cutout under moderate boost. ill know more this weekend if that fixed my issue.

 

I went to drive the car today and it still was a bitch to start. And now it won't rev past 4K RPM. It just sputters and cuts out. My wideband reads very lean when this happens ~16 ish.

 

check fuel pump has dead head pressure past 80 psi when pipe is pinched off, change out fuel filters

check injector settings, staging should be in common mode not primary hold mode

 

i think im going to have to get it re-tuned. it only started the hesitation after i got the dead coil working again. the only other thing that has changed is when the timing was zeroed.

 

Try a new CAS also?

 

I have not tried a new CAS. that is also easier said than done as i have a weatherpack connector on it and would need to order new pins for the connector. i dont think i've ever heard of a CAS going bad?

 

its pretty rare. the one i had turned out to be a bad pin on the connector, which i was able to fix.

the car died a mile or so from the shop, and we got it home by spitting on the CAS connector, which would last for a block or two, so by the time we got back to the shop, it was pretty fing gross!

a actually to test the ignition, it is totally valid to turn the injectors off in the software, either pull or plug in another CAS, and spin it by hand.

step 2 is to apply 12V to the start wire and you can zero the timing.

 

the timing has been zero'd last week