majesticsubaru

The car is a 1987 Subaru GL and I was using one of those adjustable gap testers. I'm about 99.9% sure that the valve timing is correct and I had never previously messed with the distributor position and I have tried moving it in all the different positions. I've quadruple checked where the plug wires are going to and from and have even switched them around to other positions just for the heck of it and it still will not fire at all. I'll probably get new plugs, wires cap and rotor just to be sure but I was just wondering if anyone had other ideas about what it could be. Here's the long annoying story just in case anyone's interested. I purchased the car about 2.5 years ago and it ran well. It was a little "cold blooded" but I figured that was normal. It also had a new alternator that the previous owner had just put in. At some point in the first year the choke stopped working properly. It first would stick on and not switch down to a lower rpm when it was warming up, then it just stopped working altogether. Shortly thereafter it slowly started to decrease in power and started to take longer to warm up. I had to make sure it was warm to easily go up hills from a stop without really revving it up. Then about a year and a half ago one day the dash lights flickered on partially and continued to do so while the car was running. After that I replaced the plugs, wires, cap, rotor, and fuel filters with no noticeable improvement in performance. Then I checked the coil and it wasn't within the specs so I replaced it. Still no change. This whole time the car is slowly getting worse and worse with the symptoms previously mentioned. Somewhere in there a timing belt broke and I replaced it and this had no effect after it was fixed. So about 6-8 months ago it really started to run poorly and started to backfire occasionally. It was hard to start and you had to stay and feather the gas to warm it up before you could drive because the idle wasn't right. I didn't have time to do anything to it and it did run so I neglected it for a few months until finally it wasn't really drivable due to the lack of power. I decided to just check the alternator and sure enough it was bad and it was also the wrong one for the car. After replacing that, the dash light issue went away but the performance was still just as bad. I couple weeks went by and I was out tinkering again and it wouldn't start at all, so I decided to have the carburetor rebuilt. After putting it back in it still won't start at all.

I'm not sure which engine (EA-81 or EA-82) it has and I'm not sure how to tell. It has about 25kV directly off of the coil, but only about 10-15kV to the spark plugs. I've been troubleshooting this thing for quite a while and am trying to rule everything out. The plugs, wires, cap, rotor, and coil are fairly new, so I'm reluctant to just start replacing all the ignition components. The whole story is a long and annoying one so I'll try to outline anything that I think might be relevant. Currently it will not start at all (no firing at all) even with starter fluid. I just had the carburetor rebuilt and I've checked for adequate fuel flow at the carb. I've verified the position and condition of the timing belts. I've checked the rotor rotation. I've checked for blockage in the exhaust. I've checked for visible spark on all plugs and they do spark, I'm just not sure if it's possible for them to have too weak of a spark or something. If there's anything else I should check for, I'd be happy to have more ideas. Thanks!

I have a 1987 Subaru GL (1800cc) and was wondering if anyone knows what the spark voltage should be. I suspect it to be low even though I have visible spark. I used one of those spark voltage testers and it will jump the gap at the 10-15 kV mark. Is this enough to run the engine?