engine won't start all of the sudden. found there was no spark from distributor to plugs. saw the coil was burntout, so i replaced the tranformer(coil), cap, and rotor. same problem, tested the battery connection, nothing.

any ideas?

i've been having to get rides to school/work for a couple weeks, and it's getting to be rediculous

checked the fuseblock too
o yeah it's a 1985 trans am 5.0 h.o. tpi

 

What do you mean when you say nothing with the battery. I assume that means nothing wrong. Well I have had to replace everything electrically on my car. Have you checked your starter solenoid?????? maybe that could be something. Check all of ur connections too.

 

well, before i checked for spark, the engine would just crank and crank and crank, but wouldn't turn over. i kept charging the battery to make sure it was good before i tried starting it

 

Have you tested the ignition wires to the distributor? There is a 4-pin and a 2-pin connector at the back of the distributor. With the ignition on, you should be getting 12V at the power (ignition) wire (I forget the color) at the 2-pin connector. If you are, you can elliminate everything between the battery and distributor. It helped me isolate my electrical problem much better after I learned that.

Did you also replace the pickup coil on the distributor? That kinda sounds likely since it was an all of a sudden thing involving a fried coil. I'd go so far to say that if the ignition wire has 12V at the distributor, that would be the next thing to check out.

TPI engines are sensitive to fuel pressure anomolies as well, so we would need more info. There's lots of things it could be with the info you have provided.

I'm not as well versed as kowboy on replacing electrical parts in the engine. I'm at 90% full replacement, I still have 1 or 2 originals, LOL! Good luck!

 

I was just about to post about a problem I had resolved with my car on a very similar issue. It might help with your problem.

I was driving my car daily to work without any major problems. The only issue I had was that it was hard to start when cold. I attributed it to the fuel pump because I knew that it was going out. In late January I parked my car and didn't start it for three months due to being on a short deployment (I'm in the Navy). When I got back I tried to start the car with no luck. It cranked and cranked with no sign of wanting to turn over. Checked the fuel presure at the rail and it would spike to around 50 psi when I first cranked it over and then it would slowly drop. I finally got the money and had it towed to the dealership to have them install my new Edelbrock in-tank pump since my exhaust would have to be cut and rewelded for the r/r of the gas tank. Fuel pump was changed and it still wouldn't start so I had them do the trouble shooting since I didn't have the time or patience to figure it out. They called back and said that my ignition module was bad. When they went to change it, they saw that the top of the distributor shaft was completely corroded. Of the eight points I was supposed to have, I had five and a half. The whole top of it was completely corroded. They quoted me $98 for the ignition module, $75 for the distributor shaft and $198 for labor to replace all of it. I went with option B. I bought a new MSD pro-billet distributor (for $320 from Summit), had the car towed home (for $42) and I installed it myself. For the same price I got an entirely new MDS distributor. When removing the stock distributor there were literally small pieces of the distributor scattered around the back of the intake manifold. It was in the process of completely disintegrating.

So my advice is to remove the cap and rotor and check the top of the distributor shaft to see if all the points were there. I still have the original one and plan on taking some photos to share soon.

 

well, i know the distributor is fine, i just replaced the coil, cap and rotor.
o and i had the horseshoe shaped module underneath tested too, and it tested good.

 

Replacing the coil, cap and rotor will not correct anything if the magnetic pickups are bad. Just for arguement's sake, remove the cap & rotor and take a good loook under it. If that's not it then the only thing you lost was a half hour. When I looked at mine, it was completely correded...bad. Its amazing that it lasted as long as it did. You said that you already had your ignition module checked, correct?

 

I'm having a similar problem. Just today I was driving to my buddies garage to have the emissions done and out of no where there was a huge popping noise and the car died. It cranks, but won't start. I replaced the whole distributor, tried a different coil, checked t see that there is power to the distributor. Everything is there, but it still has no spark at all. Only other thing I can think of is the ECM, but the fuse is good. It still could be a problem, but I don't believe it is the cause of it all.