Cylinders 1 and 4 no spark

[DanielsonIII]

First a little background: car has a fully built KA24DE which I got running a few months ago. After overheating the car, I just replaced the head and headgasket. Prior to doing so the car ran fine. I got it to start once after putting everything back together and it ran for 20secs. Now when I go to start it, it will crank, sputter here and there, but never run. I checked for spark and I have no spark on cylinders 1 and 4 but good consistent spark on 2 and 3. As I mentioned before, everything was working properly prior to pulling the head.

I've double checked timing and that's fine. All grounds are connected properly. I have no ECU codes. The cap and rotor look ok and my plugs are alright as well. I also switched plug wires around to make sure that wasn't my problem.

Any suggestions on what I can check next would be appreciated. Thanks!

[MedHat240sx]

i had the exact same problem with my car it ended up being injectors
check your injector rings see if they have cracks or try running sea foam through the gas tank to clean them

[Walperstyle]

Injectors, dizzy wires backwards, or timing.

[DanielsonIII]

@Wyattkerner: Injectors are about 1 month old and were installed with all new o-rings. I also didn't have any issues with leaking o-rings after the installation. Shouldn't be that.

@Walperstyle: Injectors are nice and new. Plug wires have been double checked and I would still have spark even if wires were not going to their respective cylinders. Timing has been double checked and is fine. I would also still have spark if it was off.

I am judging whether or not I have spark with a timing light. I get good consistent "flashes" when on cylinders 2 and 3 and only occasional flashes from 1 and 4 when the car sputters. Any other ideas? Thanks.

[F20cS13]

Just my 2¢.
Since you unhooked most of the electronics, I would just run back through and triple check everything. Sounds like a simple electrical issue. Worked fine before and it seems all you changed was the head? Did you have the head milled or just replaced the head?

[rcdad123]

so you are not actually looking for spark. you are just assuming there is no spark because your timing light did not flash. check your spark plugs. are the plugs wet with fuel or are they bone dry? you might have some bad spark plugs. and do an actual spark check. you don`t have to remove the plug off of the cylinder your checking, just use another spark plug attached to the spark plug wire while someone is cranking the engine. check the inside of the distributor cap for cracks, make sure the rotor is not worn out. good luck.

[Walperstyle]

@Wyattkerner: Injectors are about 1 month old and were installed with all new o-rings. I also didn't have any issues with leaking o-rings after the installation. Shouldn't be that.

@Walperstyle: Injectors are nice and new. Plug wires have been double checked and I would still have spark even if wires were not going to their respective cylinders. Timing has been double checked and is fine. I would also still have spark if it was off.

I am judging whether or not I have spark with a timing light. I get good consistent "flashes" when on cylinders 2 and 3 and only occasional flashes from 1 and 4 when the car sputters. Any other ideas? Thanks.

If you don't have injectors that need resistors (i say this because you say you have new injectors too) , then I still lean toward Timing. Possibly your dizzy, or leads. The dizzy has to be stabbed perfectly, and make sure you know the difference between compression stroke and not. (i think you do from what you said, but I cover all basics)

You can also pull the spark plug off a cylinder jam a screw driver into it, and put it next to the fender.. This will cause the spark to jump to the fender, and you can physically SEE if the spark lead works. If you swapped leads with 2 and 3, this would technically rule this out..

If you have a s13 you have an external coil. Find a buddy with a perfectly working car, swap out the coil, see what happens.



-two videos I made that might help, if not for you, at least someone that uses the search engine
Upper Timing chain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofV4eghOP_w&feature=relmfu
LOWER TIMING chain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbaFoxm-5lE&feature=channel_video_title

[hummer96]

Ok so an update to this thread...I've been working with DanielsonIII to get this running and we're still having troubles.

We replaced the cap and rotor and experienced the same erratic spark problem as before.

One interesting thing we've found is that with the No. 1 spark plug: if the plug is threaded into the head the only way to check spark is with the timing light. When doing so we get no spark/blink from the light. However, if we pull the plug wire and place a spare plug in, we get good consistent spark and the timing light blinks. If we remove the plug that threaded in the head and try that OUT of the head we get good consistent spark and blinking on the timing light. So it appears that we get good detectable spark when any plug is NOT threaded into the head but as soon as any plug is threaded into the head the spark disappears.

After all this mess, we decided to make sure the timing was 100% correct. So we tore off the lower timing cover and reset everything to factory specs, making sure all marks lined up, turning the motor over by hand to make sure we didn't have any interference, etc. Now after putting everything back together we still have the same problem.

As a last resort, I checked the ECU and found a few burned components on the board. So DanielsonIII got a good used ECU of the same model, year, transmission, etc. and I socketed it for Nistune. After installing the ECU in the car the problem STILL exists!!!

Earlier in this project while we were cranking for good bits of time, we noticed the small ground that goes from the back of the head to the firewall was beginning to melt the insulation off of the wire and was very hot. This signified a grounding issue. We checked all of our grounds and found none loose, dirty, disconnected, etc. So we added a nice big grounding strap from the back of the intake manifold to the firewall and cured the grounding problem. I believe the ECU was damaged during the extended cranking periods without proper ground.

My question now is what other components in the electrical system could have been damaged in the same way? I'm thinking about picking up a good used coil and ignitor just to rule them out of the equation.

As of now I'm running out of ideas as to what could be causing this thing to not start. Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

-Aaron

[DanielsonIII]

Another update: I know this thread is getting old and stale but Hummer96 and I are still fighting this.

We just replaced the entire distributor assembly as well as one injector we found to be bad. The first time we tried to start the car it sputtered. For our next try we rotated the distributor a little and had at it again. This time the car started for a few seconds then died! So we kept playing with the distributor to dial in the timing to the point that the car would run a bit. Our problem then came when we let it sit for a second with the ignition off. After doing so we have ZERO spark...the car no longer sputters like it was just seconds ago!!! Right now we've unplugged the battery and are letting the car sit for a bit and then are going to try again. If the car sputters again we know its something to do with after the car has power and is left alone.

Does anyone have ideas as to what's causing this!? So far we've replaced/verified:

-distributor
-coil and ignitor chip
-re-did timing from the ground up
-1x dead injector
-cap and rotor
-ecu

[skyline084]

If i were you I'd pull your entire harness out and check to make sure no wires melted together. It does sound let an electrical issue..
You said you have spark when the plugs outside of the head but not in it.. that should not make a difference at all as far as getting spark.
Take the fuel rail off and make sure the injectors all spit fuel

[Perfect Balance]

One interesting thing we've found is that with the No. 1 spark plug: if the plug is threaded into the head the only way to check spark is with the timing light. When doing so we get no spark/blink from the light. However, if we pull the plug wire and place a spare plug in, we get good consistent spark and the timing light blinks. If we remove the plug that threaded in the head and try that OUT of the head we get good consistent spark and blinking on the timing light. So it appears that we get good detectable spark when any plug is NOT threaded into the head but as soon as any plug is threaded into the head the spark disappears.


This sounds to me like a bad plug wire. When you stick it down into the tubes in the valve cover it arcs through the side of the plug wire somewhere and doesn't make a spark at the plug. When you pull the wire out of the valve cover, it has nowhere to go but to keep traveling down the wire and to the plug.

[hummer96]

If i were you I'd pull your entire harness out and check to make sure no wires melted together. It does sound let an electrical issue..
You said you have spark when the plugs outside of the head but not in it.. that should not make a difference at all as far as getting spark.
Take the fuel rail off and make sure the injectors all spit fuel

Fuel rail was pulled and all injectors were tested with a voltmeter as well. One bad injector was replaced.

This sounds to me like a bad plug wire. When you stick it down into the tubes in the valve cover it arcs through the side of the plug wire somewhere and doesn't make a spark at the plug. When you pull the wire out of the valve cover, it has nowhere to go but to keep traveling down the wire and to the plug.

Plug wires have been swapped with known good ones. Also, my timing light would "blink" even if I had a bad plug wire and it was arcing to the inside of the valve cover.

We're going to go through the harness and make sure nothing is melted. From there I don't know...

[DanielsonIII]

Quick Update: Hummer96 and I started testing our way through the electrical system to see if we could find anything out of place. We had noticed that even with a brand new battery on the charger it would never really charge. A battery hooked up to the car with no charger would drain over night. So it seems something is grounded out or shorted causing a huge drain on my battery.

Tonight we put a multimeter on the car to measure amperage being pulled from the battery. We then would pull fuses one at a time and note any drop in amperage readings. So far everything resulted in no drop except for two things: the ENG CONT fusible link and the ALT fusible link. The ENG CONT makes sense because the ECU always has power going to it to retain memory functions. When we pulled this fusible link the readings on the multimeter only dropped by about 1.5mA...not a lot.

However, when we pulled the ALT fusible link we saw drops of about 4+mA on the multimeter. Does this mean something in the alternator is fried?

We are charging the battery now, disconnected from the car so it will actually take a charge. Tomorrow we will try to start the car with the ALT fusible link removed...effectively taking the alternator out of the equation.

Any input on this?

-DanielsonIII

[Taniguchi_Is_#1]

take your alternator to the local parts place and get it checked. i did most of the same stuff you did chasing an electrical problem, and it ended up being a dead alternator. good luck.

[DanielsonIII]

Another quick update: Hummer96 and I worked on things again for a bit today. The battery still wasn't charged enough to try to start the car...trickle charge. However we did notice the following: by powering the car with either the battery or a charger when the ignition switch is turned to ACC or further the wipers run themselves, the cluster lights would turn on and off if the headlights were turned on, and the two EGI relays on the passenger side of the car would buzz...especially loud if trying to actually start the car.

From a bit of searching it seems this could be a few things:
-Grounds
-Ignition switch
-inhibitor relay behind passenger headlight

We'll get to testing these soon. What we don't understand is that none of these systems had problems before we began all of this. What!?

[JasianBlazin]

Did you guys ever find out what was wrong?

[hummer96]

Sort of. We worked on it a week or so ago and were beginning to test the harness out to make sure nothing was melted/shorted. After testing all grounds going from the ECU out we swapped the battery out for one that was fully charged. For whatever reason it started!!! Running on all 4, idling smooth, etc. We started it a few times that night, and the next day. But after letting it sit for a few days beyond that it would just click. However we found that if you either held the key or turned it on and off a few times it would eventually turn over and start. So at this point I think there's a relay sticking so we're going to replace all engine bay relays and see how it acts. But at this point, it starts, idles smooth, etc.

-Aaron