No Start No Spark, Mechanics Welcomed!

[JayTheGent]

Hey all,

I have a unique situation and I could really use some help. I have a 97 Pathy, 4x4 MT. I consider myself slightly more skilled than your usual weekend warrior but have no doubt I am missing something big.

The problem:
No start, no spark, cranks good. Fuel pressure on return line is 40 PSI, battery is good.

What happened:
Stuck in the snow for about 15 hours. Drove great all the way, got stuck about 30 minutes out of cell range. Decided to turn her off while I shoveled to conserve fuel. When I thought I was good to go, I tried to turn her over, crank sounded good but would quite catch. A little bit of smoke came out of the driver side engine bay. I figured i had pushed my exhaust up enough to cause a leek. I decided to not try too much to avoid draining the battery. Somebody finally arrived to give me a hand. We were able to get all the snow off of the undercarriage. I tried to turn over again and she fired right up. It died again as I was reversing out, I thought it was because I let the clutch slip.

Things I've tried: new cap and rotor, new distributor, push start. Dissy is getting 12 volts.

Tried push starting down a mountain, I was able to get good speed. It RPMS spiked up to 2k but then slowly dropped to 0. No response to pressing the gas pedal.

I had a clutch put in by someone else and had a check engine light appear for the crankshaft position sensor. Brought it back to the shop and haven't had any problems since (year or two ago). It looks like they dropped the transmission before removing the sensor because I see spade connectors coming off of it.

My next step is to troubleshoot that sensor, but looking at the service manual, it says that the sensor doesn't control the motor, it just helps diagnose misfires. In the past, ive seen similar issues solved with a new sensor, is the VG33E different?

Thanks for any and all help!

[JayTheGent]

New Update:

Got a new crankshaft position sensor in today and still no spark. I am quickly losing hope! I checked continuity from the ecm to the sensors and checked engine grounds, everything looks good to go. I will probably go to the scrap yard tomorrow and grab a new ecm. At this point, I really don't know what to look for... Any help is appreciated!

[atraudes]

Is it throwing any codes, and if so, which ones?

You said that the distributor is getting 12v but there's no spark at the plugs? That sounds a lot like the ignition coil. Did the new distributor come with a new coil? Also, which brand of distributor did you use? I've heard of people having problems with some brands. If the distributor is getting voltage the ECM probably isn't the culprit.

[JayTheGent]

Thanks for the response! It was a remanufactured distributor. My problem ended up being the camshaft position sensor within the distributor. Like an idiot, I didn't inspect the "new" distributor before putting it in. If I had, I would have discovered that one of the pins (the 120 degree if I recall correctly) was bent so bad that it wasn't connecting to the plug.

This was my first time working in depth with an ignition system and I learned a lot. I am not sure if this is expected, but my rig wouldn't start even though I had the distributor on the right tooth, I just didn't adjust it correctly. It didn't fire up until I was within 20 degrees of TDC, is this normal? Everything I read said even if you are 180 out, it should still start, rough, but still start. Not in my experience.

Anyway, I think I can file this one in the solved box for now. Thanks again!