Ok, I've been researching and trying to fix this issue for nearly a month! Heres some background info:

- 1997 civic cx
- 1995 civic si d16z6 engine sitting in garage
- performed a mini-me swap (Entire ex harness swapped except for the wires to the ignition hub because the car was gutted on the inside at the time)
- New distributor, cap, rotor, plug wires, main relay, battery, plugs, coil, igniter
- 11.9v going to the coil when key is in "on" position
- power to coil goes to ZERO when the engine is being cranked over
- when key is let go, power to coil jumps back up to 11.9v and lets off one solid spark at the plug on cylinder 1.
- thought starter was starving the system so i disconnected it, power to coil still went down to zero when the key was turned to start
- tried to jump the coil by running a wire directly from the battery to it, still no spark
- all grounds appear to be solid with a clean connection

My thoughts:
Issue with alternator or ignition hub, or a ground.

I need to have this car running and any help would be greatly appreciated. I am completely out of ideas!

 

bump...

 

go buy a new battery first. A fully charged battery should be giving you 12.6 volts. 11.9 is basically dead, plus if your battery has 12.6 volts and you're getting 11.9 at the coil then you have some crazy voltage drop. Either way, a new battery will completely rule that out and then get back to us

 

Alright, will try that thanks

 

11.9 is acceptable power at the coil, and the coil jumps from 12V to 0V because of the way an ignition coil works, let me explain this...


You have an ignition problem of some sorts, I would pull the coil and perform a resistance test on it, if your arcing the plug wire to a ground, you probably burned up the coil secondary winding.

Take a multimeter to the + and - terminals on the coil, you should have 4 Ohms or less resistance, if it is infinite, or higher than 50 Ohms, replace the coil.

If that check outs, check the coil secondary. Take one lead and place it on the spring terminal that pokes out into the cap, and put the other lead on the + and then to the - terminal, your reading should be around 16,000 Ohms (16K Ohms) If this reading is infinite, or excessivly high (26,000 Ohms or more, or readings that differ between poles greatly) replace the coil.

A coil operates on mutual induction, the primary circuit is closed by the ICM, which allows current to saturate the coil primary, the ICM then opens the circuit primary at the right time to fire the spark. The built up electrical energy has no where to go, and since ALL current must return to its source the only path it has available by design are the secondary windings. Now the primary windings are a heavy gauge wire, rated to handle 12V and some 10A of power, when this is cut, it jumps to the very thin gauge secondary to go back to the battery (through the spark plug gap.) Imagine a 100 lane freeway with cars traveling 15 miles per hour and the road ends, they are now forced to take a one lane road at a much higher speed (40,000 mph) in order for them to get home in the same time. (electric current always flows at the speed of light.)

 

wow! my brain hurts now!


<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by slowcivic2k &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">11.9 is acceptable power at the coil, and the coil jumps from 12V to 0V because of the way an ignition coil works, let me explain this...


You have an ignition problem of some sorts, I would pull the coil and perform a resistance test on it, if your arcing the plug wire to a ground, you probably burned up the coil secondary winding.

Take a multimeter to the + and - terminals on the coil, you should have 4 Ohms or less resistance, if it is infinite, or higher than 50 Ohms, replace the coil.

If that check outs, check the coil secondary. Take one lead and place it on the spring terminal that pokes out into the cap, and put the other lead on the + and then to the - terminal, your reading should be around 16,000 Ohms (16K Ohms) If this reading is infinite, or excessivly high (26,000 Ohms or more, or readings that differ between poles greatly) replace the coil.

A coil operates on mutual induction, the primary circuit is closed by the ICM, which allows current to saturate the coil primary, the ICM then opens the circuit primary at the right time to fire the spark. The built up electrical energy has no where to go, and since ALL current must return to its source the only path it has available by design are the secondary windings. Now the primary windings are a heavy gauge wire, rated to handle 12V and some 10A of power, when this is cut, it jumps to the very thin gauge secondary to go back to the battery (through the spark plug gap.) Imagine a 100 lane freeway with cars traveling 15 miles per hour and the road ends, they are now forced to take a one lane road at a much higher speed (40,000 mph) in order for them to get home in the same time. (electric current always flows at the speed of light.)

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

 

I'll make you think

 

and you did! good info!

 

Thank-you very much. Your information is by far the most helpful I've received in regards to this issue. I will be tackling these tests Saturday and will keep you guys posted.

 

Alright, so I ran some tests on my coil and got a reading of 15.7ohm b/t the spring and positive lead, and I got a reading of about 1.7ohm b/t the positive and negative leads. So I guess it's not the coil. However, i'm using an obd11 alt on an obd1 setup and so i'm going from 3 wires up to 4..... Is the alternator absolutely necessary to start this car or just for recharging the system?

 

It's gotta be something between my batter and distributer cause the power line into the coil is what goes down to zero when cranking... so i don't know what could be making the power go down before it hits the coil.

 

bump

 

bumpidy bump bump ha

 

Do you have an ignition module? Mine went bad and **** wouldnt work, just a thought.

 

ya mine's fine. the problem can be tested even at the power input for the coil outside the dizzy

 

It looks like I don' have my crank position sensor hooked up... but I don't see any plugs on the harness to hook up to it! This i'm told is likely all that is causing this problem. I'm using a obd1 civic harness that I was told was out of an SI when I bought it, and the engine is a d16z6 out of a 1995 civic si. so I don't get why I can't find the plug. Any thoughts?

 

The crank position sensor is located right near the vtec solenoid right?

 

its in the distributor harness inside the distributor, lost track of this thread.

The coil voltage will drop to zero because it has a duty cycle, and has on time just like an injector does.

If that sensor is not hooked up you will not get spark or fuel. IF you wired it wrong, it wont work, the wires are polarity sensitive.