not firing on cyl #3, ignitor chip?

[T-rev]

So for some random reason Im not getting spark on cyl #3. It cut out while I was driving. That was real fun.

I have spare coilpacks and a spare ecu, I swapped them in (yes, one at a time:) and still no fire. I checked the original #3 coilpack and plug, using a lead from cyl 2 and damn near set the car on fire (injectors are working). The wiring looks fine and I cant think of any reason for it to be melted/corroded/disconnected etc.

I checked the igniter chip as per the fsm and it checks out OK. But if the ecu is ok, and the coil & plug are ok, what else is in between?

[jdm180]

injector? also do a compression test on it to be sure you didn't drop a cylinder or something.

the way i always think is what do you need for the cylinder to run air, fuel and spark. so if you got all three then it may be a fouled plug that looks ok but is not strong enough to ignite the fuel or your compression may suck. Just some suggestions i am no expert.

[josephg15]

swap the spark plugs...like for instance when you swap the plugs and if the misfire follows the sparkplug, problem solved...

[josephg15]

or buy a cheap sparkplug tester...if it shows spark then your coil pack and spark plug are fine...or you could also start the car and with it running disconnect the injector plug and see if it makes a difference in idle...no difference then theres your problem...

[T-rev]

sorry I think I didn't make it clear, the spark plug and coil are fine. They work fine when hooked up to a different cylinder, and at first I swapped coil packs from 1 to #3, to see if it would all of a sudden run on 3 and fail on 1. It didn't do any good, still no spark on 3.

The problem is strictly no spark. I have compression and fuel because I pulled the plug and cranked it, I could see gas and air getting shot out the spark plug hole so at least the piston is moving and injector is firing.

[drmerdp]

Don't assume anything. Have you ground the plug out of the head and attached to the coil pack to visibly see spark? Got to see it. Next compression test the cylinder, if ok then swap out an injector. a bad injector may still work but very poorly, hence the presense of gas and spark but cylinder still misses.

[T-rev]

Its not an injector problem. OK lets just say everything is set up like it should be. I pulled out the spark plug and was testing it against the valve cover. If there was any sort of spare I would have seen it.

Can a ignitor chip fail to fire on one cylinder?

[fast_s13]

not likly.....i would serously do a compression check and see what the numbers are

[T-rev]

why are you guys going on about compression? I could have no compression, maybe, but Ill deal with that later. My problem right now is no spark.

The spark plug is out of the head, in the coil pack, grounded to the valve cover. Im not trying to run the motor, Im just trying to get spark. All 3 other cylinders have spark.

The signals from ignitor chip, are they a ground (-ive) pulse? Im trying to get something on my multimeter. According to the fsm it looks like power is flowing into the chip via the coil packs.