Hello, I am having trouble starting my engine with electronic ignition for the first time. I ran into this problem while trying to set the timing. The problem is I am not getting a spark to the distirbutor. Both the posistive and negative terminal on the coil have power when tested with a test light, but the terminal to the dist. is not giving a spark when the dist. is being turned. I cannot get the coil to send a spark to the dist. Please forgive me for the FNG question. Am I missing something with wiring? Or could it be the dist. Many thanks in advance. Trigger
Many thanks in advance... Now that's funny! What year and kind of engine is it? Is this a points conversion kit? Is the ignition 12V? Is the car negative or positive ground? Lots of variables here... Flatman
Unless he's testing it with it still hooked up to the coil. It's either the "things that make the coil fire" or the coil itself. Quick way to test the coil....disconnect the wiring to the coil. Fix the coil putput wire (one to the dist.) so it's about 1/8 - 1/4" away from a good ground (bare metal on the engine). Put a wire from the + side of the battery to the + side of the coil. Then take a wire and secure it to a goor ground or - side of the battery. Take this - wire and touch it MOMENTARILY to the - side of the coil, and immediately pull it off! The coil should spark the output wire to ground. If it does, the coil is probably good. It doesn't mean it's 100% good, coils CAN fail under a load, which can only be tested on a machine. But if it p***es, I'd take a good look at the "things that make the coil fire". Check to see if the points open and close when the dist. turns. Use a "tach and dwell meterk dwell angle. Check the mating surface of the points to see if they are clean, and not corroded, or anything. If they look OK, I'd still replace them, if the coil p***es it's test. They are cheap enough and if the condensor is bad, you can't see it anyway. You probably don't have an OHM meter to check it anyway. If after you replace points and condensor, it still doesn't fire, then it probably is the coil. Again, cheap enough to buy, and after you toss out the known bad part, keep all the parts you took off that are probably good, and keep'em as spares in your glove box or trunk! Sorry if this seems too simplistic, but it sounds as if you don't have much automotive experience.
Thank you guys for helping me with this. Flatman- It is a sbc (please don't shoot me) with electronic ignition and the wiring is negative ground. Chopolds- Thanks for the test on the coil. We switched out a known working coil, but are still having the same problem. HotrodDon- Your saying the negative side of the coil should not be getting power when all hooked up, but it definatly should not be getting power when the dist is being rotated? We used an ohm meter to check all of the grounds and the dist wires and all were apparently ok. Thanks again.
A coil converts 12v DC to 25,000 or so volts to fire the plus. To do this there is a 12v + source that goes to the positive side of the coil and a ground that is the negative side of the coil. The ground is connected to the distributor through either the points or the electronic trigger. The coil converts the 12v to the spark voltage and when the points or trigger opens and closes the circuit, the result is the spark at the spark plug. This is an oversimplification of what happens but illustrates that there should only be 12V positive on the positive side of the coil, never on the neg side. Of course this is for a 12v neg ground set up.
when you hook up a test light to the negative side of the coil, the light should flicker on and off when the distributor is turning. If the coil is ok and this isnt happening, I would suspect a bad module in the dist. If it is then make sure the rotor cap was installed
None of this helps with out knowing what kind of ignition he is using, just electronic is too vague to be of any help.
Your coil will show hot on both terminals with a test light when powered as the test light provides a ground for the coil. Check the primary winding and secondary winding resistance and see if they're within spec. Check the reluctor air gap, the rotor and cap contacts, and the coil with to the cap. Flatman
If I am reading this right, you are having trouble for the first time, not installing and converting to hei for the first time? ***uming that to be the case on a sbc, there are only a couple components that make up your ignition circuit. The laws of probability are such that in dealing with hei ignition, the parts that fail the most are first, the module, then the coil, and rarely the pick-up sensor. If its the other way, you need to check and see if your current is not overloading the line and destroying your electronics. You can do that with a resistor in the line to keep the current at a constant. $.02
This is a common question with common answers. Maybe i can help. Lets ***ume we are talking only about the primary side of the system as there is no spark at the coil wire. I have drawn the system as if there is a simple switch in the distributor. The circuit shown runs from the battery to the ignition switch then to the ballast resistor ( may or may not use) and then to the positive on the coil. From the positive on the coil it then willl go out the negative to the switch ( contacts -condensor or electronics). With switch on you should light a test light at the switch, the ballast (both ends) and BOTH terminals of the coil. Light brightness is based on contact/switch on negative and may vary from bright ( switch open) to light dim (switch closed or grounded). Lets start here and tell me what you have at those positions with key on and during cranking... Glad to help
GMC: Thank you for the diagram. We are now getting power to the coil correctly after changing a srew up of mine. We were able to get the the test light to pulse on negative terminal while turing the dist. This is great, so we tried seing if the number one plug wire is getting juice and turing the dist quickly, it gets power. But if you do not turn the dist quickly enough it does not send a spark. We thought we had it figured it out. We ****on everything back up and try to start the engine. Nothing. We then take the number 1 plug out and crank the engine very quickly and no spark. I am afraid to crank the engine too much becuase I have not yet broken in the flat tappet cam.Could this be a function of the dist not being turned fast enough to give spark. Thank you for guys for helping a FNG out.
I guess we need to know what kind of distributor we are dealing with. If its a mag-pulse and it sparks when turned fast and not when turned slow the air gap is too wide. Tighten up the air gap.
Try to get the motor broken in with a points style distributor. THEN figure out what is going on with the electronics dist. If it's a stock style GM HEI it's probably the module. jerry
If it indeed is a stock GM HEI dizzy you need to check to make sure you haven't hooked the iginition witre in the clip to the tach pin. Don't laugh Iv'e seen it done a number of times. I have also seen this problem and the culprit was an ignition wire that was ***umed to have been plugged in but was just wedged up in the cap but not connected. Sounds foolish but it happens.
Hei needs to be grounded, so that means the dizzy should be tightened down enough to make sure its grounding. Are you sure the rotor is turning as well? Just a thought.
Yes it is grounded well and the rotor is turning. Thanks for helping me troubleshoot. I checked the air gap and it is .022. But supposedly it is a maintenance free pickup. What the hell?
Post some pics of your setup and some more info on exactly what you got there. My crystal ball just broke and I can't see you any more.
Yeah with out a proper description of what the dist. is this is just pointless, I asked before and was he said it was a magnetic. Well that just narrows it down.
You're right, it's pointless! If it IS an HEI (TELL US!), you need to make sure the ground strap is on the coil (will go to one of the terminals in the cap plug). If not, it will kill coils all day long, also try running a BIG (min 12 ga) wire from the battery + straight to the BAT lead on the cap. If it fires, you have too much resistance in the ignition hot lead (common problem when installing HEI in a car that originally had points).
HEI????? Another thing to check, if it is....you still don't have the ballast resistor hooked up on the + side, do you? HEI needs direct 12 volts.
you might try buying a 1 wire HEI distributor and drop it in your motor hookup the positive wire , put on the plug wires and start the motor. I have been using these in my smallblock fords for 5 years.[YES a smallblock ford with HEI distributor, could this be the only good part GM made?} you can get these on ebay for under a hundred dollars and they make them for almost any engine. They are simple to install and run great..........
Andy, correct me if I'm wrong, but his distributor is the MSD Pro-Billet, Ready-to-Run version (pn 8360) that came with the Blueprint Engine he's running. We know it's not at all HAMB-y, but we were hoping it woulld be easier to get started... (Wrong) I'm Trigger's brother and have been trying to help him with the build... We're both pretty new at this (obviously). Thanks for the help guys. (Trigger- Sorry for blowing the cover on your BILLET distributor )
The dist is MSD pn 8360. It is a ready to run dist with no HEI. I am not using an ignition control box either. Thank you for help. By the way I talked to MSD this morning and they said is is possible that my battery just does not have enough energy to turn the rotor quick enough to get proper spark. RustBucket: You have gone and done it now.
Sounds like you should break in the engine with a regular dist. Then you stand a chance battling an msd system later on. Good chance it's fried by now anyhow. They have an impressive looking control box though, maybe you can use it to put something else in.
The Jalopy Journal
