to begin i have a two wire tachometer hand held, i need to adjust the idle (inside tachometer deffinitly isnt reliable) one wire is possitive one negative obviously... i tried the wire from the distributor to coil, but it wont start with that connection, i tried all four wires to the ignition coil unless im doing something wrong? im not sure i need serious help on this plz help me ! 2.8L v6 firebird 1988

im not familiar with the ignition on a v6 car, but on the dizzy should be a small wire, probably brown, that is the tach signal, you should be attaching to that wire. Its probably on a plug all by itself.

ive traced the oe tachometer and it hooks to a blk/white primary wire on the coil, but when i hook my positive to the coil where do i plug the ground? tried it on my hand held tach, no reading..im stumped

manual says white goes to instrumental cluster panel, blk thick spark plug wire goes to distributor and is linked to coil ground? i guess the coil is a ground? pnk wire goes to hot at all times fuse, other pink goes to radio noise capacitor.

ground should be the chassis, no? Just attach it to the chassis somewhere, or a bolt on the engine

The black wire goes to ground and the green wire goes to coil on a hei with internal coil you need to make a jumper wire from the tach hookup, on an external coil it hooks to the negative of the ignition coil terminal with a jumper.

I think the positive on the tach would go to 12V (any 12V), and the ground would go to the negative on the coil (black w/white?). My hand held tach has power, ground, and another wire that goes to the negative on the coil.
I have the wiring diagram for the 2.8 if you need it, let me know.
Randy

after all the tach hookup is always the negative side of a coil. If I can remember, my 88 2.8 was a white wire on the remote coil(coil has 2 connectors that mesh together, one conn goes to the dizzy and one goes to the main harness, and the main one has the white wire that the factory tach triggers off of.)
hope this make sense....

On an after market TACH Green same as above, white to dimmer switch, black to ground and red to batery voltage when ignition is in on position.

My tachometer only has two wires, one with a black boot and one with a aligator clip.

the external ignition coil has 4 wires + the black distributor wire the spark plug lookin one.

theres a black wire which connects to a white wire and goes into the coil, thats the in car tachometer power wire, according to the book which is correct because if i disconnect it i get nothing in the car. then theres a blk wire with pnk stripe, and on the other side theres a wire that goes to the fuse box, and one going toward the ignition module.

if i disconnect the tach wire and plug my aligator clip there where do i plug the boot wire?

ive tried the chassy, i get 12-14 volts but no RPM's on the tach, see i have a tach/dwell/volts, and the tach works used it on my other vehicle.

i believe its because its getting double grounded i cant figure this one out.

my 2.8 has the same mesh hook up, 2 connectors that mesh together, but my tachometer only has 2 wires and the book says that the white wire goes to the instrumental panel aka tachometer.

yes, hook up to that white wire, the four wires at the coil are actually jumped inside the coil, the connector with the pink and white wires from the car side, the other conn goes to the dizzy. so the 12V Ign (pink) goes in to the coil and jumps across to the other conn to go into the dizzy. The tach signal (bl/white) actually comes from the dizzy(ign module) and jumps through the coil out to the tach on the dash.

pink====????
white====black/white?
----------
so, just hook up your 2 wire tach to the pink and white. if it does not work, reverse the connections. other than that tell me what brand the handheld is
so I can try to find some info on it.
Randy

Blk/White is the tach wire, and the blk with pnk stripe is shown in the manual somehow connecting like this blk/white<--|
| coil
|
blk/pnk wire(which this wire then leads to ignition module.)

so thats the first connector. ill try what u said tommorow morning, in the manual it practicly shows the whole ignition coil is a ground.

my tach is a Tachometer/Dwell/Volts Meter Sears brand thats all it says, big black box not too big, has a booted wire and non booted aligator clip. (old) bout 6 years got it for 100 bucks)

thanks alot Randy and others !!!!!!!!!!!!!

yes, the metal frame around the coil is shown to be a ground for the secondary side of the coil, the secondary positive is going to the spark plugs!
makes sense doesn't it.

I have the same one and the first post i replied is correct for that tach.
Make sure it is set to RPM. look on page 5 and 6 of the manual for connections to different coil types. The black goes to engine ground or negative on the battery.

its set to RPM's, i tried chassy ground and neg battery term doesnt read at all, what do u mean hook green wire to jumper? i have an external 4 wire + spark wire coil, plus i lost my manual ahhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wish i had it..

blk/white = tach wire
blk/pink=ignition module wire
others=fuse box and radio capacitor/module

so where do i hook it up?

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second coil, i hooked the aligator clip wire there, and the booted wire to neg term and got nothing... need to make jumpers were im totally confused..

the second coil is my coil, i hook the green wire where u stated because that is the tach wire, so were do i make jumper?

this is my last post on this one. the green wire goes where i showed and the black goes to a good vehicle ground. best being the negative terminal of the battery. the jumper is only so you can have the original tach wire and your tach wire both hooked up. if you have it hooked up this way, start the car and get no reading the 5 year old tester is broke, i know mine is shot and gave me a lot of false readings. Good Luck

thanks alot cooter ill give it a shot.