As you all know by now, I have an ignition problem... the plugs are fouling (soft sooty carbony), the car is underpowered...

I pulled the cap and rotor today to see what the deal was, on the underide of the cap on the pole pieces there is a whitish substance, it's hard, and after taking a rag to it, it's still mostly there... the rotor looks like it's been anodized black (I forget how it looked when I bought it) and in the center of it where the coil wire comes down into it, there was some carbonish corrosion type stuff...

I wiped it all down and am ready to put it all abck together, but I wanna wait for a responce from you people...

(BTW, when I tested the ignition coil, it was as if I wasn't testing anything at all... but then again I was either looking for infinite or zero values anyway, so I guess that checks out... the pickup coil is impossible to get at, so I can't check that...)


Any comments, pleace help me out!

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1985 Camaro SC - 2.8L, auto.

http://www.xenodrgn.f2s.com/Frontright.jpg

 

The coil should have some resistance on both the primary and seconday side but you have to get on the right terminals. If you cannot clean up the electrical corosion on the cap and rotor I would replace them. HEI ignition throw a pretty hot spark and if it starts tracking inside the cap it's bad news. Also because of the high voltage available if one part goes it starts taking others with it. Badly worn plugs will over stress the wire wich overstresses the coil etc.

Bear Tracks

 

How old are the cap and rotor? After nine months my msd cap and rotor still look like new, if you haven't changed yours yet, it would be a good thing to do. You know that you could be getting a better spark with new, clean, inexpensive parts.

 

That sounds just like how my Accel caps always looked after a year... I've since moved to an Ac/Delco cap & rotor; we'll see if it corrodes less. In the meantime, you can use a thin metal file to scrape the carbon tracking off the contacts. Try not to use sandpaper because you don't want to put a curve in the contacts. I suppose you could use sandpaper against a thin piece of wood...


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-Tom P (Hot rodded 1986 Firebird 2.8l) from http://www.f-body.net/mailbag/3rd/3rd_mailbag.html message boards
---Think your car could be pic of the week? Visit http://www.f-body.net for details!

 

They are 3 months old... maybe 1000 miles...

I took out the module and started poking around in there, and noticed that the connector for the pickup coil is completely shot... all dry rotted, so I can only assume the pickup coil is shot... I'm ordering the stuff either today or Monday, and I'm going to have my mechanic put it all in.

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1985 Camaro SC - 2.8L, auto.

http://www.xenodrgn.f2s.com/Frontright.jpg