Dont you love it when your almost finished...

[DriftingisLame]

...And you have a bad ignitor?

My motor sounds like its running on like 3 cylinders, very low on power and sounds like its skipping a lot. I changed the plugs and so a friend and I concluded that its most likely a bad ignitor (maybe coil pack?). He has an rb25 ignitor and it just happens to be completely backwards. So if I rewire my rb20, backwards, I can run an rb25 ignitor correct? What else do you suggest I check before I start cutting things?

Thanks for the help.

-Max

[Carl H]

chances are its the coils, the ignitors (while they do fail) wont fail as often as the coils.check the coils out and see whats up there.

[lyon23]

Check ignitors, coils, injectors, and spark plugs, if all are good then change your computer.. had it happen to me on a swap, I changed all of the above many times with diferent one to find out if was the ecu.

[DriftingisLame]

Well if I check the coils wont some of them appear to be bad if my ignitor is actually bad?

[lyon23]

Well if I check the coils wont some of them appear to be bad if my ignitor is actually bad?

yes it will, you can take a test light to it to make sure the are getting a signal from the igniter. I had extra coils so I tested all the plugs with another coil and stuck a spark plug in it to test for spark. Also when you removed the spark plugs did the ones that were not firing have gas on them or were they clean?..don't know if you check to make sure your injectors are firing.

[DriftingisLame]

Now that I think about it, I believe that when I pulled the plugs some did appear to be wet and others dry..

I'll try the test light on the coil plugs from the ignitor and post back here.

[Wulfgang]

You'll save a fat wad of cash (now AND in the future) if you just go out and buy a nice automotive multimeter so that you can test this stuff instead of trying to replace it piecewise.

[Wulfgang]

.... and/or just get a $50 20 MHz oscilloscope off of ebay.

[Eikon]

A common problem with these engines is the coil pack harness.

The wires are exposed to a lot of heat, typically sit for a couple years waiting for one of us suckers to buy it, then we try to start them again.. they are brittle and often go bad. I spent a ton of money on new coils and an ignitor and found out that it was just my stupid wire harness in the first place.

Start the engine... Pull out the plug from coil #1... if the engine changes pitch or dies you know that it was a good coil that you unplugged. If nothing changes, that cylander wasn't firing. Do that for all 6 - 1 at a time. Figure out which ones are bad.

Once you know which cylanders are not firing.. then figure out if the coils are bad.

If you know that cylander 1 is good, but 2 is bad... Try yanking both coil packs and swapping them. Start the engine again... cylander one is now bad, and cylander 2 is now good... then you know the coil pack in 1 is shot. If cylander 1 is still good, and 2 is still bad, then you can figure the problem is either the wiring or the ignitor. If both cylanders are bad... punt!!

[Nameless EJ6]

.... and/or just get a $50 20 MHz oscilloscope off of ebay.

got a link to any of these?

[DriftingisLame]

Later tonight my friend is coming over with 6 new coils, so were just gonna swap real fast and see if that dont fix it.. If not then we'll try rewiring to the rb25 ignitor. We know that these coils and ignitor are good, so if that doesnt fix it.... bummerrrr.