Ok so like... just when I thought my car was all patched up, ironed out, and the bugs were gone, I've got a serious problem.

If anyone is up for helping me troubleshoot, I can use some help ASAP. I move in 2 days, I really need my car up and running fast. Electrical / Ignition issues are a big pain in my *** right now.

I had this ignition 'skip' at idle or low RPM that was driving me nuts. After the main dyno tuning session a few weeks ago. It wouldnt' happen as the car was fired, but after it warmed up for a minute or two, it would start. Its a random skip, no patterns. It was a little annoying, but I figured I'd check it out when I had the chance.

After taking the cap off I found some awesome **** inside.
check it out:




Looks like all the spare parts I've been keeping in the cap finally decided to take a walk, and destroy some stuff. That damn rotor screw backed out and went for a hell of a ride. There were a couple of teaspoons worth of plastic, metal, rotor, and stuff inside.

I changed the cap + rotor, and the skip was still there.... kinda surprised me. On Saturday I decided to head over to my buddies shop just down the street and pull out the plugs, and see whats going on. The plugs look ok, nothing out of the ordinary. I load-tested my Taylor wires, and did a compression test, all seems 100% normal. After putting plugs back in, and wires back on from the compression test, I try to start the car to leave and go home, and it just turns over, will not fire. I try to start it, cranking maybe 3-4 seconds at time, 3 times or so. I'm thinking "great".

We poked inside the distributor, and found under the dust-cover that the ignitor chip (with 4 wires coming off) was shady. 2 wires heading to the distro. on the right side that crimp onto a base, were frayed and upon touching them .... one fell off / out of the distro.

Yippie. I spent 3 hours or so in the afternoon / dark in the parking lot getting rained on.... trying to put spare parts of 2 distributors together to make one that worked, in order to get home. I tried swapping another ignitor chip from a distributor I found, but it was obd0, and the physical case wouldn't fit in my obd1 distro without hitting something critical. It sucked, and I never got it to run that night.

Monday I overnighted a new complete distributor (TD44 I think) from distributor-king.com, rather than mess around with parts / ignitors / chips / old bearings, etc. The old distro had unknown mileage on it, and was in questionable condition.

Yesterday around noon I get the new distro, slap it on the car, clip plugs together, put power back to the car, crank it over, and nothing. It'll turn over, but wont start. Upon turning the key off, and taking it out, the motor gives a slight buck... like maybe the coil fires upon turning the vehicle off.

I've got plenty of fuel. The 750's let you know it when you crank it over. The problem is I dont have any spark .... I grabbed a see-through spark tester, hooked it up to #1, and upon cranking, nothing... tried #2, nothing.

I think tomorrow I may check the power to coil, to try to determine if its a internal distro/coil issue, or if its the main relay that got fried / hosed. Would a main relay cause something like this? When I key-on accessory power before cranking, I hear the fuel pump trigger + cycle. Is it possible that if I mounted the distro gear upside down, it wouldnt' have the phasing it needed, but I'd think that it would still output spark (bad signal?)

I fear something may have happened if wires touched or shorted internally in the distro. I think I'll also connect the laptop to see if the AEM EMS is getting "Stat synch" or power-output to the ignition system upon cranking.

Yay! Fun, right? ... Its awesome.

I can't wait till this thing runs, so I can start working on my Jeep and get it ready for winter. I need something simple w/ a carb again.

If anyone has any ideas or insight, feel free to post it up, or drop me an IM.

Thanks!