Spark out of the coil, but not to the plugs?

[Ender_Zero]

Hi guys, I've done some extensive searching, and couldn't find anyone with my particular problem.

History: I'd swapped a 93 KA into my 91 S13 coupe about 6 months ago, it was running like a champ until about 2 months ago it started breaking up at WOT near redline. That was the only indication that anything was going wrong. One night coming home it lost power and died. I tried starting and there was no indication that it wanted to start at all. I was close enough to push it all the way home (no small feat with a welded diff...turns are killer.)

So where I'm at right now: Its a spark problem. I checked the spark coming out of the coil by grounding it on a nut, spark was orange but thick and seemed strong. Pulled #1 spark plug and popped the coilwire back in so I could see the spark plug at work. No spark whatsoever. I tried the other plugs. Nothing.

Its got to be the cap and rotor right? Wrong. Just replaced both of those today and tested the plugs again. I've made double sure I've got the cap on right and the wires in the right place. I can't see it being plugs or wires since it was running ok other than a bit of break up at WOT... All four can't have gone wrong at once, right?

I've checked for connections getting unplugged, everything looks good. Grounds look good. I'm thinking now that its either the dizzy or the ecu... Can either of those stop the spark getting from the rotor to the cap? I can't think it would, since its almost all done mechanically at that point...

I'm completely stumped. Anyone have any thoughts? I appreciate you guys!

-Ender

[compactfean]

Check the coil wire itself. I'd just get a set of new plug wires to be safe.

[Ender_Zero]

Thanks for the response, when I checked the coil, I actually took the end of the wire off the dizzy and grounded that to a nut, thus in my mind testing the wire as well. I'll probably end up taking a multi-meter to it and testing resistance just to be sure.

I'm more and more thinking that the CAS in the Dizzy went bad, possibly making the dizzy retard the spark so far that there isn't any getting through. Does anyone know if the spark from the coil/coilwire should be orange like I described? I remember back on my 69 camaro it was blue/white, dunno if orange means a lesser spark or not.

[compactfean]

Oh I see. It is possible that there is enough juice to come out of the coil but not going through. The cap and rotor. Ign timing will have nothing to do with color of spark. Your symptoms say bad coil I'd check to see if its good.

[Ender_Zero]

I assumed that if I could see a spark from the coil wire at about .5 inches away from a nut i'd see at least a little tiny bit of a spark on my plugs, but that makes sense. I'll probably replace the coil next. I guess I should have put another paragraph in there, I knew spark color didn't have anything to do with timing, I was just going from one possibility to the next

Thanks again.

-Ender

[compactfean]

Yeah you should be able to hold that sucker like 3 inches away! And hope to God you don't get 10k volts through you! Lol. Good luck.

[Ender_Zero]

You were right! New coil fixed it right up. No breakup at near redline now either.

Thanks!