Okay, my friend and I put a TPI setup from an 88 GTA into his 89 Firebird. We swapped everything over, intake, fuel pump, wiring harness, ECM, everything. We are not getting any spark from the coil at all. The red wire which goes to the coil from the harness has power when the key is on. When cranking the engine, the tach stays at zero. We bought a new ECM from autozone, and it still has no spark. Could it be something with the VATS or electronic spark module? We are out of ideas.

 

Take the ignition module out and run it over to the nearest parts store that will test if for you.

AJ

 

Does autozone test them? Are you talking about the ignition module in the distributor, or the electronic spark control module located on teh firewall?

 

The ignition module in the distributor. Also, check to make sure you didn't accidentally plug the MAT into the ignition module, and vice versa. They are identical plugs, and easy to accidentally swap.

 

Okay, just went outside and checked, the MAT is not plugged into the distributor, it is plugged into the wiring harness.

There is power to the coil when the ignition is on, but no spark from the coil when cranking the engine. We tried the ESC module from the GTA donor car, as well as the original TBI one. Both cars ran fine before. We are going to autozone to test the ignition module. We also have another distributor which worked fine, so we will get that one tested as well.

 

Well, we figured it out. The ignition module from the TBI distributor was shot, we took it to autozone and it failed the test. We also took the one from the TPI distributor up there, and it tested fine. Also, the pickup points on the TBI distributor were pretty worn, so we just used the whole TPI distributor. Thanks alot guys, we were stumped.