{"id":5209,"date":"2019-10-17T18:48:04","date_gmt":"2019-10-17T22:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/?p=5209"},"modified":"2019-10-17T18:48:09","modified_gmt":"2019-10-17T22:48:09","slug":"spark-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/spark-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"Spark Testing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Testing an ignition coil output on my 944 Race Car<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

After having diagnosed a few no starts lately – the latest being my 9444 race car – I decided to get a spark checker to verify the output of the ignition coil.
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https:\/\/amzn.to\/2MoGzR6<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To test the 944 coil I removed the coil wire from the distributor and connected the wire to the tester.  I grounded the clamp to a bolt near the headlight.
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I then connected one wire of the remote starter to the starter solenoid and the other to the positive terminal of the battery.
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https:\/\/amzn.to\/2VRedBZ<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I then turned on the power to the car and the ECU.
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I was able to then monitor the spark tester while spinning the starter.  
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I started with the tester spaced at a little over 20,000. I got a good visible spark so I opened the gap some.  I still got a big spark so I opened it up a little more. This time the spark bypassed the tester and jumped to the exposed parts of the car that the tester was resting on. I repositioned the tester and opened it up all the way to 40,000. I was able to get a good visible spark indicating that the coil was firing at its full potential.
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This made for a quick and easy test of the ignition system.  I could easily connect it to a plug wire to make sure the individual wires are working as well.  I think this will make a good addition to my troubleshooting toolbox. 
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When I went to start the car later, there was a lot of black smoke coming from the exhaust.  I am sure that while I was spinning the engine over with ignition disconnected the injectors were pumping in fuel.  It might be a good idea to disable the fuel pump when performing the spark test.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Testing an ignition coil output on my 944 Race Car After having diagnosed a few no starts lately – the latest being my 9444 race car – I decided to get a spark checker to verify the output of the ignition coil. https:\/\/amzn.to\/2MoGzR6<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[542,210],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5209"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5209"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5210,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5209\/revisions\/5210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikestrawbridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}