Destructimus

Well my car decided to break down like it has every week for the past month and it's at a gas station on Woodward avenue. When I cranked it there was no spark jumping from the coil wire to the frame so I tried changing the coil and it didn't fix it. I got the battery checked out about a week ago and it's fine. The light to my MSD digital 6 turns on so that should be working fine (but who knows). One thing I did think was strange though, was that my gauges told me my car was getting about eight volts when I'd crank it, but it turned over just fine. The lights dimmed pretty good though. I'm thinking it's a pickup coil that's drawing a huge voltage from the coil. I'll have a better idea tomorrow when I get down there with my VOM but does anyone have any ideas or similar experiences?

Shadygrady

iTrader: (3)

Mine has done similar stuff.Twice it`s been my msd coil.Did it just die while driving or did you kill it and it wouldnt restart?Did you try sarting fluid/ether?Check battery,alternator,cap rotar wires,spark moduloe,fuses.My fuel pump fuse wiggled out somehow one time.I keep extra pigtail wires with connectors to quickly hook my ignition system back up like stock just incase my msd box goes bad.Plus it makes it really easy to eliminate it as a when something does happen problem.I`ve never seen the light on mine not come on.I think that just means it`s getting enough volts to run.IIRC at 11 or so volts it won`t even work

Destructimus

I killed it and then it wouldn't restart. It's been real inconsistent with how it is starting for a while. Most of the time it will fire right up on like the first crank but now and again it will just turn over for a while and kind of sputter to a stop. A few times it's turned over real slow but it has always started. What's IIRC stand for? I also have an error code for my EGR and it acts like it's bad but I can't figure out why. Can't find a vacuum leak and the valve and solenoid seem fine. Another thing to note is that at stoplights, the engine revs way down to like 300 rpms and then goes back up before steadying. When this happens all my lights dim and I can smell the fuel get richer.

Shadygrady

iTrader: (3)

Did you get the alternator checked when you had the battery checked.Sounds like battery,alt,starter to me.I could be wrong.But if it`s turning over at all the the alt. could have gone bad and caused the battery to be killed/used up,not being recharged.Those are the things I`d check If your sure it`s not getting spark and fuel isnt the problem.IIRC=if I remember correctly.You`ll see a lot of abbrieviations like that on here.Is it turning over now just not starting?Is the SES light on or is it a stored code for the egr.Probably time to change egr.But I doubt it`s connected to your starting problem.

Destructimus

I figured it out last night. Turned out that the battery cable i had going to my msd slipped out of where I had it crimped in the ring terminal at the battery- always sucked at crimping the wires down. Lol i was out there testing all this different crap and I thought to myself, "I should probably disconnect my battery because it is getting low" and thats when the wire just slipped out. I didn't think to check because the damn power light for it was still on.

I have an EGR question for you though if you don't mind me asking on this same thread. Are the EGR valves on our cars controlled by backpressure or coolant temp? I don't know if by backpressure, it means exhaust backpressure, but I'm beginning to wonder if running around with open headers like a psycho with too low of backpressure will cause an EGR problem, even though I remember this problem pre-dating tearing off all my exhaust but that could've been one of the vacuum leaks i've fixed since then that caused that... Thanks.

Shadygrady

iTrader: (3)

I think free flowing exhaust can give you egr codes,but other than that I cant tell you.I dont have it on this car and believe it or not the other 3rd gens I had never had egr problems.Low mileage I guess.I do believe it is backpressure controlled by vacume.The one on my tbi truck was bad and it would get stuck open or closed.I think there is a tech article on this from the home page.Been a while since I read it.