okay after much investigating and time, i think i know why my car is acting up at idle, and the shop i go to which is best in town just keeps charging me for crap i didnt need, such as a o2 sensor and etc.... one code threw out my tps was bad, so i replaced it and still surging at idle and then dying. but i believe i know the problem now, but i wanted to hear your opinions, i think its the magnetic pick up coil on top of the distributor thats worn out. If the magnet is worn and cracked the signal is very bad which would explain the weird voltage loss when im sitting at idle before it dies. the magnetic pick up is only bout 15 bucks at oreilys. Is this all i need??????? or is there more involved?

 

You wouldn't see any voltage change from a bad pickup coil. Usually if it goes bad, the car just starts shutting off instantly.

 

the car sometimes does just shut off sometimes, but i believe its just not as bad but its going out, its getting worse, and ive run out of ideas, i thought the pick up coil and im going to see if that does anything. The car will idle at 600 for once second and then starts surging and sometimes its just gets there and automatically starts acting up.

 

Wouldn't hurt to try it.

 

thats what my 95 blazer did changed that disconnected ground from batt wile ya do it cranck sensor fixed it ran lot better after that until my kid hit a tree

 

i havent had time to change it yet, been to busy and the cold weather. Im trying to get it on there by the end the of this week and see what that does. i dont get why especially it idles worse at night, because my lights are on and everytime i go to a stop the lights start flickering dim in and out, and i put it in neutral and hold the gas til about 900 rpm everytime to keep the lights not dimming in and out. its weird. sometimes i feel like satin is living in my car lol. But i hope the coil does the trick, this car is getting on my last nerve, but other than that i love it.

 

When the lights are on the alternator puts more load on the engine.

 

i have the same problem and i was lead to believe its the pickup coil aswell, the only thing stopping me is i dont really know how to replace the pickup coil. do you know how to go about replacing it?

 

a buddy of mine knows distributors inside and out, so once he shows me i can explain, im getting it done tomorrow afternoon around 4 so maybe tomorrow nite i can help. he said u just need to take off the cap and unhook a few things. but he is going to help me make sure i do everything right.

 

oh good, keep me posted, im kind of at an end with my car and im just thinking of replacing the whole distributor.

 

by tonite i should be done, try the pick up coil first because thats only 13 bucks compared to what a whole new distribitor is going to cost you man.

 

yeah im trying not to shell out the 120 for the new distributor

 

unless u know how to take out the whole distributor man i got nowhere, and when i popped off the cap, everything on there was brand new surprising, and it was rebuilt most likely, so i doubt its the pick up, everything looked fine, i taped up a vacuum line though to the map sensor that barely helped anything. i need to find all my vacuum lines but im not sure where every line is because theres so many. but i did get to the magnet, that thing definitely sticks lol. But sorry man, it's revieted to the distributor. you have to take it out to change it.

 

could u see the magnetic pickup when u took off the cap?

 

It's underneath the rotor.

 

i have the problem that my car shuts off suddenly. so im leaning towards the magnetic pickup. how would i go about replacing it since formula kid said its riveted to the distributor?

 

This is a non-computer HEI distributor, but the idea is similar. http://members.shaw.ca/crussel/hei/HEIrebuild.html

 

as far as i can remember when u do take off the cap, u sort of can see the pick up, but the piece you will see is the magnet itself. but theres no way of taking off the pick up without taking the freakin thing out. if worse comes to worse ill just have my machanic take it out and look at it and change it out, im mad at myself now for returning that pick up coil because i was pissed at the time and thought i didnt need it.

 

after looking at how to take out and apart the distributor, i see where its located and doesnt look that difficult to do. thanks for the help

 

so did the pick up do anything for you man?

 

before i got to it, i opened up my dist. when i pulled out the ignition coil it felt kinda crappy. so i decided on taking it in the house and looking up how to test it with my multimeter. and i found out that it passed one of the three tests, which means it probably works alittle but not how it should. some im going today to see if i can buy a new coil and put it in the car and try it out.

 

okay keep it updated man, im still having a tuff time figuring out what heck is wrong with my car. is your voltage dropping at idle and surging and then dying? if its close to exactly like that, then i need to get the coil back i returned and put it in if thats the problem cause im so really stuck at what to think what the problem is without replacing some many parts. the only thing i havent replaced which seem to be in good shape is the IAC and the egr, the egr i think could be replaced but i dont think its the cause of my problem.

thanks man

 

my problem is rather wierd. my idle likes to move alot while sitting still, itll plunge to the point it almost turns off, then it saves itself, then itll plunge again and just die. then i wont be able to turn it on for 10 minutes.

the coil should come from summit within acouple of days, im also in the process of flushing the coolant. if the coil doesnt help my problem, ill have the module checked, if that passes, then im removing the distributor and rebuilding it. its sad since my car hasnt run right for a year.

 

well idk then man, mine cranks right back up after it dies, im really stuck at this point. why did you order one from summit? the coil can be picked up at your nearest auto parts store.

 

i ordered an accel brute thunder coil, which has more power than a stock or oem replacement coil

 

Coil "power" doesn't mean anything, though.

 

o okay, im gonna try cleaning the IAC and seeing how it looks and seeing if any changes will happen which i doubt it will, it feels like a power problem, when im not even at a complete stop yet at night my lights will flicker dim in and out almost about to die because its surging, and i put it in neutral and hold the pedal barely enough to keep the idle up. sometimes it will die just in neutral sometimes, it did that to me just pulling up to my house the other day, the car just completely shut off on me.

I got my emission box back from the original owner but im missing the A.I.R. pipes though that go to the manifold with it. The other owner said when he took off the emissions he threw away the A.I.R. pipes. anybody know anything about this or what it looks like, and if its a junkyard find or not? because i wanna see how the car runs with the emissions on.

 

The AIR system doesn't have any impact on how the engine runs, it only blows air into the exhaust to clean up emissions.

 

things that have to be wrong. 1. a vacuum lines or a couple, im trying to help in locating all the lines and finding the leak because i have carb cleaner but im not sure when ive found the leak if my car keep surging idling or when the engines changes rpm. 2. Egr is messed up. 3. pick up coil which have no idea of changing, 4. the IAC needs to be replaced, im going to check it out tomorrow. Or it just occured to me maybe the wire that plugs into the IAC is messed up considering i had to replace the tps connector along with the tps not to long ago. Anything else im missing that can cause my problem so i know every possiblitity.

 

whats the point of offering a higher volt rating? and a lower resistance?

 

To sell coils, mostly.

 

im really tight on money right now, but i took the car to the shop again to see if the problem can finally be corrected, my machanic said if they dont fix the problem they wont charge me, but he said there going to be pulling the whole distributor out, so hopefully tomorrow late afternoon i can find out what the deal is.

 

keep me posted, because as it turns out i had tested the secondary circuit of the ignition coil wrong. but it still needed to be replaced. im taking my ignition module to the part store to see if they can test it

 

the problem with mine was is that its just a crappy distributor with a dopy pick up. Im gonna have get a new distributor on the car. But thats basically the problem with mine, and the part will come in next week, and ill have the work done later next week on thursday, so ill keep u updated. but yea bad distributor.

 

checked pickup coil, and it checked out, had module tested and it checked out. when i checked the coil it was alittle out of spec im not sure if that would cause the problem but ive went ahead and replaced it. hopefully the new coil will fix the problem. if not then i have to move onto the fuel system, ohm check all the injectors, and perhaps check the fuel pressure to see if the regulator may be acting up.

 

FIXED!!! The distributor was bad, and got a new one in there and it idles like a dream now. also if you want to see the car and what my 91 trans am is its the car tyler sold on here in october.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/fire...-am-350-a.html

 

oh wow, what was wrong with the distributor

 

something to do with the pole on the distributor and it was just overall bad. they put a reman in there and now it runs awesome.