NorseKode Posted February 6, 2004 Share Posted February 6, 2004 91 loyale ea82 no turbo The problem started last week. A little sputter at idle, not a big deal, but I noticed. Then it would hesitate from a stop. Let the clutch out in first and second and the whole car would buck and stutter for the first few seconds, then smooth out above 2000 rpms. Then it stalled and was almost impossible to start. It _felt_ like a lack of fuel, or maybe air. Like it was starving. When it did catch (after stalling) I had to listen really closely to hear it running... not because it was going so well, but because it was missing whole series of cylinders at a time (or just running at 10 rpms). Had to coax it up into the hundreds. Throughout all this, two things were solid: Cold startup was a breeze. Just as normal as can be. AND, highway speeds were fine. since these two states are 95% of my driving, I just increased the idle cam screw to give a base throttle of 1600 or so. If I never dropped below this range, everything was fine. Last night, I changed the O2 sensor, turned the rpms down and jerked the throttle cable a few dozen times. There was a slight hesitation on a couple of pulls, but basically, everything was great. So I left the idle rpms down at about 750 and drove it. Worked great around town today. Maybe 30 miles total. Then it died. Motor cranked just fine. No catch. Not even a hint. Someone pushed me over the crest of a hill and I bumped it to life. For the next mile, it stumbled and bucked at 3000+. Then it smothed out. I parked it for an hour. Started it cold. It warmed up. It died. It's been hours. Still cranks just fine. I have spark. Plenty of fuel pressure to the throttle chamber. ECU gives a single 6 (which is normal for a California car), Open air delivery chamber. But no catch. None. Just about ready to join the Honda revolution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calebz Posted February 6, 2004 Share Posted February 6, 2004 I had a similar problem a while back.. turned out to be the ignition module in the distributor getting hot and dying.. fine start when cold.. after I let it warm up it would die at idle and not restart until it cooled off again..I swapped the distributor for a spare I had and the problem went away... A bad coil can also exhibit symptoms lie you have described. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MilesFox Posted February 6, 2004 Share Posted February 6, 2004 the spfi also has a temp sendor for the ecu. you may want to check that out also dons spfi sedan sometimes wont start at all if its really cold, gets spark and fuel, no fire, even with ether but let it sit and come back the next day and its fine spfi can be screwy, somehow running into a stump and bending the suspension knocked out the fuel and spark, i dont get it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
viceversa Posted February 6, 2004 Share Posted February 6, 2004 I had something similar with 92 loyale, had 190K miles at the time. first, all acceleration was gone, took forever to get to 45mph. I think I was running on 3 cyls. Then, it was impossible to start. Hot or cold. Couldn't figure out what it was. Just gave up on the thing and installed an entirely different engine / EFI. That's my solution. Albeit expensive and time consuming. I hate troubleshooting EFI problems, could be a million things. Bad injectors, bad computer, distributor, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorseKode Posted February 6, 2004 Author Share Posted February 6, 2004 That little afterthought about the coil was a nice addition. I just happened to have a new Accel coil in the back of the car (bought for a Chrysler that turned out to have a broken camshaft.... still trying to figure out how I did that) so I pulled out the _month_old_ Accel coil I was using in the Sube and measured from the output to the side terminal. Nothing... totally open circuit. Measure the new(er) one? 8.5k Ohm. Toss the new(er) coil into the gap and BAM! The little engine roars to life. Then it starts getting rid of the excess fuel I've been putting into the intake for the past three hours. I never would have suspected the coil because it's new. How stupid is that? Thanks again. When I start embracing the Honda dream you can be sure I am either depressed or low on blood sugar. Thanks to everyone that responded, and Calebz especially. Kalo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calebz Posted February 6, 2004 Share Posted February 6, 2004 Good deal. I love 10 minute fixes:D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorseKode Posted February 6, 2004 Author Share Posted February 6, 2004 The way my luck runs, that was _not_ the root cause of the problem, just the neccesary fix to get running again. I mean, I suppose that coil could have been a turd right out of the box, but is that the smart bet? What causes coils to burn out? Besides poor factory QC/QA? Voltage spikes? Nah, that'd blow out the ECU first. Dying spark controllers? Any thoughts? Kalo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calebz Posted February 6, 2004 Share Posted February 6, 2004 My guess is that the coil was a turd right out of the box... A good coil should last darn near forever.. I have dealt with all sorts of electrical bugs in all sorts of cars.. even fried my ECU last summer (still haven't figured out why that happened).. I have seen very few things that will do major damage to a coil.. superheating it could damage it.. dropping it off a 10 story building on to concrete.. my guess is you just got a bum coil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skip Posted February 6, 2004 Share Posted February 6, 2004 Your resistance test on the old coil bout seals the deal (nice work on that bit) but, remeasure it cold and see if it "comes back to spec". just a stray side note: Not mentioned in this discussion is the ignition amplifier. (NOT to be confused with any distributor devise - often called the "ignitor") Often overlooked and forgotten about , it does not go bad often but... My first turbo wagon had the same symptoms and this was the culprit. ALL cars with a CAS (Crank Angle Sensor) distributor have one. incl. SPFI, MPFI and hot wire MAF turbo . I doubt your still reading - in case you are - the bracket the coil mounts in has the "power transistor" (a.k.a. ignition amplifier) mounted on the lower portion. If you know about transistors, you know they have three "legs". Well two legs come from the ECU the third is the ground the bracket must have. This could have been the problem. If, when you changed the coil, you corrected this ground fault, the coil may not have been the problem but ... If you have read this far I hope you get the picture. I'm sure it's as clear as chocolate milk. sorry for the diatribe glad you are staying away from the dark side (Acrua) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meeky Moose Posted February 6, 2004 Share Posted February 6, 2004 heh the ole ford had a new coil put on it.. it ran fine till i changed the plug wires 5k later.. pulled the coil wire out and the coil puked all of its internal guts out onto the inner fenderwell.. good thing i was at the parts store when this happened.. so coils can be turds outa the box.. happens all the time with a large variety of parts.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorseKode Posted February 8, 2004 Author Share Posted February 8, 2004 If you know about transistors, you know they have three "legs". Yeah, I was wondering about the purpose of that sucker when i changed the coil. So... Coil is energized from positive side, through primary and out negative, which is connected to the collector (let's say) of the ignition amplifier. ECU sends firing signal through the base of same, which complets circuit from collector, through junction, through emitter to ground. Primary and secondary are hot, ECU discontinues signal, fields collapse. Yeah, worth a look. Think I'll get the original coil out of storage and pack it around for a while just to be safe. Kalo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now