This is a problem SleepyEG encountered when troubleshooting his B18c1 stock ignition on his turbo'ed car. After some tests of my own I wanted to further elaborate on the differences and emphasize the importance of getting an OEM rotor.

SleepyEG symptoms: Heavy Misfiring and dieing under boost.
what was replaced with brand new parts = Spark plugs/ Spark plug wires/ Rotor / cap / Ignitor / and coil tested fine.

Here is what the problem is:


Here is a Generic Rotor purchased from discount auto parts. Mine was manufactured by GP Sorensen , and SleepyEG was manufactured by a different company, yet both had no insulation on the sides of the rotors tip.


Here is a Picture of a brand new rotor from Acura I purchased to test the two differences. As you can see the sides of the conductive surface have a wafer like insulation to prevent arc over from happening.

The rotor purchased from Discount saved me 4 dollars over the one ordered through http://www.acuraautomotiveparts.org, so the savings is hardly worth it. I had similar problems SleepyEG with my ignition when testing rotors. Obviously generic rotors are fine for most stock applications or else they wouldn't be able to sell them. As Combustion chamber pressures grow it becomes increasingly more difficult to fire the spark plugs. This causes the coil or the un-insulated rotor to arc over internally. So for Forced induction applications or High compression applications I would stick with OEM.

Some other helpful points when troubleshooting the distributor:

helms says the resistance on terminal a and b on the coil should be between .6 and .8 ... mine read 0.9 with a multimeter and the distributor worked perfectly before the swap so I thought the .1 difference was merely due to fluke ... boy was I wrong...

make sure rotor retaining screw is made of a diamagnetic material (correct Acura part) and not a regular screw... sometimes people loose this when changing their rotor and thing its ok to use any screw.

 

to OEM ignition parts.

Care to try the experiment on 3rd party distributor sub-assemblies?

 

Good info

lil things like these are what can hamper people's setups

 

Sometimes its the simplest things...as always....good info Dasher

 

Good research,

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by EE_Chris &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Care to try the experiment on 3rd party distributor sub-assemblies? </TD></TR></TABLE>

I agree....it would be nice to see what the"performance companies" try and sell.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by TheShocker &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Good research,

I agree....it would be nice to see what the"performance companies" try and sell.</TD></TR></TABLE>

... i agree, I just wished I had a team of researchers under my payroll to test every product for me before i buy them too.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by dasher &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Some other helpful points when troubleshooting the distributor:

helms says the resistance on terminal a and b on the coil should be between .6 and .8 ... mine read 0.9 with a multimeter and the distributor worked perfectly before the swap so I thought the .1 difference was merely due to fluke ... boy was I wrong...

</TD></TR></TABLE>

Was the coil bad? The rotor wouldn't cause that extra resistance.

 

the rotor had nothing to do with the extra resistance , the coil was bad. Two different problems.

 

Dang good info! Keep it up!

Blaze

 

i actually just put a sorenson in my car.

The car wouldnt start before, and now it starts and then quickly shuts off.

Could this be the reason as well?

 

most likely not ... replace it anyways...