Well I've been having a reaccuring problem with my car dieing randomly on me, I've gotten the ignition coil replaced, but that didn't help. So the other day it dies on me again, no suprise. So I go to check for spark, by unplugging that ground wire from the valve cover to engine bay, and shoving a screwdriver in the spark plug wire, and watching for sparks to hop. Well sure enough sparks started shooting, and the weird thing it started right up.. Now normally when it dies like this it will not start up untill the next morning (I had not tried testing for spark though before this, my *** is lazy). Any ideas as to what could be going on? I currently have that ground wire unplugged and it starts right up and drives fine. I'm really confused, any help would be great.

Also some other symptoms when it died were: The dizzy was quite hot (is that normal?), and the car had been running totally perfect before it died.

 

On the coil there is a brass looking plate that covers it. Since you replaced you should know what Im talking about. Take that plate off and look for black marks on it. If there is then the coil is grounding out on it. Which makes since to me, when you take the plug out of the motor it has less resistance and fires. When you don't have the ground hooked up on the valve cover it doesn't get enough ground to arch. If there are black marks take electrical tape and wrap the coil as much as you can while still fitting it in the plate pretty easy.

 

were sparks 'shooting' like, spraying everywhere? lol. also I've never heard of anyone undoing the valve cover ground to check fo rspark. the valve cover needs to be grounded, hence the checking for spark on the cover, so keep it bolted. also the dizzy should be hot, if the motor itself is hot then the dizzy will be hot, they are connected so why wouldn't it be? if it's hot and the car is cold, then yea you got a problem.

 

Well the car died 3 times today, I was able to get it back to running every time, what I would do is basically unattach/reattach that ground wire, and just keep turning it over and messing with it untill it started. It worked every time.

Also, I've noticed that when I'm driving my car now it makes very noticible wurring noise when I rev it up, and even at idle, and it seems to rev down quite quickly as compared to how it normally had before I got the ignition coil and timing belt replaced. If I could describe it as best as i could i'd say it sort of sounds like an electric motor, maybe its the alternator?

 

Could it be possible that the wining noise is the alternator running at full strength because of a bad connection/ground somewhere? Sorry if thats a stupid question, I'm pretty dumb about car tech.

 

the next time it wont start have someone crank it over and tap the dizzy with a screw driver and see if it starts if so i would check your ignitor

 

I'm going to go with main relay, its common on these models, search for main relay on here, you can repair it if you know how to solder

 

You mean just tap the dizzy cap?? well I'll try that the next time it happens, sounds a little strange though lol.


About the main relay - I've heard those usually only fail in hot weather, the problem has occured when it was not hot at all, and also when I've gone to check to spark before when it died there was none, untill i messed around with that ground wire.

 

yah usually if its the main relay then you would have spark but no fuel soooooooo... id check the dizzy actually if it is running and you tap it (ont the cap and it shuts off then there you go try it and let me know

 

Problem solved: it was a bad ignitor.

 

told ya glad u fixed it