1986 Iroc-z with an 89 Camaro L98. Just finished doing a HSR swap that included switching to a small cap distributor and external coil. Went to fire it up to bleed the cooling system and set timing, no start. Have fuel, no spark.

No spark leaving the coil, which is a brand new Petronix Flamethrower. I have a spare Jegs coil, same thing no spark. Have power from the pink wire going to the coil with key on. Have power going to distributor as well with key on (checking the EFI connections wiring harness adapter). I have no clue as to why I have no spark leaving the coil.

Edit: I also tried a new Ignition Control Module in the brand new distributor, still no spark. I'm beginning to think the actual distributor is junk, which would be severely disappointing cause it had cost over $200.

Edit 2: Tested the pickup coil. Resistence bwteen the wires in the connector was 894 ohms. Moved the wires around and no change. General spec from what I found online calls for 500-1500 ohms so that checks out. Checked resistance between coil and distributor body and that should be infinite and it is. I have no clue anymore as to whats causing the no spark.

 

I hate to bump this but does anyone have any clue as to whats going on? I am in a severe bind as the car has to be running this week to make it to an event.

 

You have mentioned all of the proper steps to troubleshooting this , you have tried a new module , verified 12V on both the coil and module , and tried substituting the coil . You ohmed the pickup and got the proper readings . There are only two things that come to mind here ;

#1 , is the distributor body properly grounded ? Pretty sure one of the wires going into the ICM is ground , and if that were missing it could explain why you've got all the seeming right conditions and still no spark ....

OR , And damn I hope I'm wrong about this ;

#2 , have you visually verified that the new distributor is actually turning while your cranking the starter ? My thought is , what if it's somehow got the wrong gear on it , and it's not properly meshing with the camshaft gear ?

Anyway , I hope you find it , in time for the event .....

 

#1 Distributor is sitting correctly in an HSR intake. Can't imagine that its not grounded through that. Not sure what else in regards to the distributor body grounding can be done.

#2, verified the distributor is spinning. One of the checks I did was to reset at TDC, and I did find I was slightly off with wire routing so I fixed that as well.

The distribtor is a Petronix Flamethrower (http://www.summitracing.com/parts/pnx-d1020)


Can a pickup coil ohm out good but still be bad?

Also, which should be completely unrelated I had a new chip installed in the ECM. I verified the ECM is getting its power as well. The Spark Control Moduel also gets power if that means anything.

 

Putting a voltmeter between the metal of the distributor body and the block will tell you if it's getting a proper ground . No voltage reading is good , A voltage reading indicates the block and distributor body are not at the same electrical potential (in this case , ground) .

Also , I thought the distributor will still make spark if disconnected from the ECM , but that there would be no injector pulse without the distributor's reference pulses being fed to the ECM ?

 

Distributor is grounding properly. I tested the pickup coil and its voltage is low. It pulses but only from .300-.450 volts. From what I have read it should pulse a lot higher than that. I have to guess that to low of a pulse won't cause the ICM to send the signal to the ignition coil to activate the secondary wiring. I will be installing a new pickup coil and testing again tomorrow. Hopefully I found the problem.