This is not a honda but I thought you guys might be able to help. Is there anyway to test an external coil, like with a battery? I'm trying to figure out why I can't get spark in my 78 toyota and I would like to find out if the coil is bad before I buy one. Thanks in advance.

Yager-

 

ttt

 

Go to Autozone, they'll test it...

 

try starting the car with your fingers on it.... if it hurts like hell, you're good to go

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Simple &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">try starting the car with your fingers on it.... if it hurts like hell, you're good to go</TD></TR></TABLE>

Well I already know I don't have spark but if I didnt that might work...

Yager-

 

First measure the coil resistances with your ohmeter. Check against spec. The primary of modern, fast rise time coils, will be very low, around 0.6 ohm. You wont be able to read that well without a specialized low ohm ohm meter. Check with the ohm meter for any shorts to the metal case or the exposed laminations (if this coil has them.)

Now modern fast coils have current limiting coil drivers, so do this with care, cause this method does not accurately limit coil current.

Grab a lead from the battery, put it thru a normal 12v incandescent headlight (use this to limit current) put your lead from the headlight to the + terminal on the coil. Place a lead or a spark plug with a 0.100 gap on the secondary and ground it to this + terminal. Now take a bastard file and ground it. Take a lead from the - of the primary coil and QUICKLY scrape it along the file, you should get a lot of sparks.