I have a problem with my car cranking and cranking with no attempt to start.

Last night I went out to my car thinking all was fine and dandy, car was working 100% fine until I turned the key. The motor could crank all day long but with no spark.

This morning I went outside to go give the car a second try; It cranked and fired right up. I let it sit there and idle and gave it a little gas here and there, then all of sudden it was an instant shutdown of the motor. I still had lots of battery, all gauges reading fine.

I tried cranking it over again and it had no spark.

My dad then opened the hood and checked for spark at the coil by jamming a screwdriver into the spark plug wire going to the coil and then getting me to crank the motor. He said that the first time I cranked the motor there was a very small orange spark, very weak, and then from that point on after multiple cranks there was nothing.

I checked the fuel pressure earlier and it was fine (in case the fuel pump was bad, although it was new as of last year)

I replaced th ignition module last summer with a new high output Accel one.

The car has a Crane Hi-6 ignition box.

Right now we are both thinkng it could be the coil or the pick-up. Right now I have limited funds so what does you guys think the problem is?

 

Don't you bypass the ignition mod with the HI6? I have one but haven't used it in 3 years....it sounds like either the HI6 is going bad or the pickup coil because when something heats up, it all quits.

Are you sure you didn't run over a black cat on Friday the 13th?

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=186592

 

Still no starts guys....I haven't replaced anything yet, I want to know exactly what part I need before I purchase it.

I ran another test today to see if the pick up was bad, my grandfather (former GM engineer) told me to run a wire from the positive post of the coil (with the positive cable still attached to the coil, just kinda jammed the wire in) to the battery (not touching at this point). Then I was supposed to jam a screwdriver into the sparkplug wire that connects to the coil. Once this has been done, I was to touch the other end of the wire to the positive post of the battery and see if I get any spark from the screwdriver if I place it near metal.

Well my father and I just performed this test and we got no spark.....well at least from the screwdriver......we did get some spark when I touched the postive battery post.

I have a small short somewhere in the car like if I leave my car parked for anyhting over a week and a half, the battery is drained. This could maybe the cause of the spark at the battery I don't know, but I'm still trying to figure out what is wrong exactly COIL or PICKUP coil?

The coil I found out is a aftermarket high-output Crane Cams coil. Because this is a replacement aftermarket coil from Crane, it makes me think that it is not likely my coil that is faulty but my pickup.

The coil is connected to a Crane HI-6 ignition box. The box may be a older model because it is anodized blue instead of the current black they are today. The ignition box has an indicator light on it which tells me whether it is functioning or not; The red light is on.

I am getting no codes thrown at me so it's not the ECM.

All other information is located at the top of this post.

 

HEY! I resemble that remark!

Ya my coil crapped out after running over that skunk on Fri the 13th. Took me a while of chasing wiring before saying what the hell and tried a diff coil. Fired right up. Funny thing is I just installed a Crane HI6 since they where running a buy the ign and get the coil free through summit. The under the hood temp does worry me with the Crane unit. I also replace my ign module since I had the dist apart. Heat makes the ign module do crazy things. too.


BTW Any old coil should work to test if it is the coil. I used a MSD blaster coil off my vette.

 

Today I tested the coil at my grandfathers house and there was a nice blue spark coming from the coil, so the coil is not the problem.

Today I also installed a new pickup coil and reinstalled the distributor. When I went to start it up there was no attempt at a spark, but did reek of fuel (flooding)

 

Go back to basics...ditch the Hi6 for now and see if it runs on the coil, pickup and ig mod...if not then something else is to blame. Part of troubleshooting is eliminating variables, like the HI6...they can go bad...

HTH,