Hi,

Due to bad connections and a general worn condition I've replaced ignition coil (MSD8226), cap and rotor (MSD8406), same products as before. The car is a 1989 Camaro 350 TPI.

When cranking it, it won't start but merely "puff around" some, then dies. I've been thorough when putting back rotor and spark plug cables not to mix up direction or order.

I attach a video of the phenomenon and perhaps someone of you can help me figure this out. Guess it'll show if I'm a fool or just unlucky.

Thanks in advance!

Br,
Per

 

Pull the plug on cylinder #1. Hold your finger over the hole and turn the crank until you feel compression. Watch the timing indicator and keep turning the crank until the balancer lines up with 0*. Pull the cap, and verify the rotor is pointing in the general direction of cyl #1. At the very least, it should be pointing to the #1 plug wire on the cap or just before it. Double check the firing order of the plug wires. Correct as necessary.

Also would be worthwhile looking for anything you may have left disconnected, or damaged while changing the cap and rotor, etc.

 

I had a similar issue once before and it ended up being a bad cap. For whatever reason, the contacts were spaced too far from the rotor and it wasn't making solid contact.

 

Make sure the pickup coil connector to the ICM in the distributor didn't come disconnected. Or have the ICM checked. I just went through this. HTH

 

Thanks all for helping out. I've now followed the spark plug cables to the plugs and checked rotor and cap positions -all are correct and unchanged from before. Still no better. Swapped back to the parts mounted before but still won't run.

Since I've come to learn that the fuel pump relay gets "cut off" if oil pressure switch is faulty I tried to check this but the relay is functioning and pump priming before ignition. Even jumped the relay -fuel pump ran all the time but the car still acted the same. Will try to measure the actual fuel pressure but it seems unlikely to me that this would fail just when I change ignition parts, right?

So now I'm back to the bad ignition theory, only that I haven't got a clue of what the problem can be. Does anyone have an idea?

Contractor: how do I check the ICM?

Br,
Per

 

The ICM is located under the cap. Two screws hold it down and has three connectors to it. Unplug and take to advance auto or equivalent and they can test it. I would almost bet it's bad. Make sure to use the grease they give you on the new one to dissipate heat. Hope this helps

 

Thanks Contractor! Found it and tried with a new one, unfortunately it wasn't the problem. Have to keep searching!

Br,
Per

 

Are you getting any spark?

Have you got fuel pressure?

 

Fuel pressure?

 

Double check connections at the coil and ensure the coil is properly grounded.
Check if the rotor broke (that happens on alot of new rotors). Meaning, make sure the little piece inside that holds it to the distributor isn't broken.

100% check that the firing order is correct.

Check ignition fuses...?

Also, once upon a time I had to replace a distributor and got a new one from Advanced Auto. The replacement ran for 10 mins before the ICM died. I then went through every distributor that all five of the Advanced Autos around me had with each of them having their ICMs fail. Finally, a manager just handed me an Accel ICM and I've been fine ever since.

Moral being: Your new ICM could have failed right away. Check for spark coming off the coil, then from the coil to the cap, then from any of the wires to any of the plugs.