So I haven't had an f-body for a while now, but my friend is having some trouble with his '86 ws6 so I immediatly thought to post here.

the car: 86 ws6 originally lb9, when that bit the dust we put in a "hencho" 350 shortblock with a better cam and worked over 305 heads, stock tpi with an AFPR, headers, 3" pipe and a flowmaster. stock distributor with msd 6A and accel coil, new plugs and wires, yadda yadda

Abbreviated: Car runs like crap with stock coil, no spark at all with accell coil, both coils spec out fine, everything else in distributor checked twice-ok, new plugs and wires no codes

in depth: started out as a miss under load, so I popped the cap and see the rotor lost one of it's screws and carved up the cap nicely, so I change the cap and rotor and it runs the same , then the next day it would start but only with the est unhooked, and if you tried to go over 1k rpms it just falls flat on it's face. Also if you try plugging the est back in it will barely start then surge really bad. then it just lost spark completely, so I put in a stock coil and unhooked the msd and gapped the plugs back down and it went back to only idling, but no rev. so I pull the distributor out and completely overhaul it, check all the wiring, check the pickup, had the module tested and it came out ok twice. I also contact accell and get the specs for their coil and it's perfect, so is the stock one. So I put it back together and it does the same thing. I also power balanced it and all the cylinders are firing. that's about where I am. oh ya, and no codes.

 

replace the coil.. spec or no spec... sounds bad to me. you put a spark checker in there?

 

have 2 coils already, the stocker is known to be good, yes I put a tester on it and it's got monster spark. almost seems like it's just firing randomly.

 

Well, you unhooked the EST and it would start and run....ever think the EST was bad? Without the EST hooked up it should fall on its face, there is no spark advance without it, only the base 6*.

 

I've had the est bypassed before when I set the timing when it runs good and it still revvs up and sounded strong even with only 6-8 degrees of inital. now it's incapable of revving past 1k even if I advance or retard the timing manually it still does the same thing. is there any other components controlling the spark other than the in cap module with est bypassed?

 

The PROM does, but hardly anyone messes with that, not even the senior DIYs.

Man, this kinda sounds like a hard one. No codes? Hmmmm. I was gonna say that it might not be spark after all, but you seem pretty confident over that. You sure that the coil is getting good enough power from the motor? I've never heard of this before and I am going pretty farfetched, but could the gears in the motor that drive the coil and all have messed up and not giving the coil all the power it needs? Just a thought.

 

the dist has 12+ volts and a good ground, and the drive gear has barely any wear at all.

 

My bet: It is either the Ignition Control Module or the Pickup Coil. Both are easy to replace. The pickup coil is the item that has the little 2-pronged connector that goes to the ICM.

Tim