3rd Gen no spark

[Saint Luke]

Hi guys just trying to fix my old mans 88 prelude, and have ran out of things to try. The problem is the car has no spark coming from the coil at all. Car was working fine, driving on the highway then suddenly died and hasnt fired since.

The list of things that have been changed or checked are. Changed Distributer, coil, igniter, cylnder sensor(?) - sits on the exhaust cam near the dizzy, leads (theres no spark from the coil but they were changed anyway). All relays and fuses have been checked, there is fuel pressure, battery is charged and engine cranks over freely. We have reset the ecu, then replaced it.

Fault codes it came up with originally were TDC sensor, but after a lot of cranking between trying things and then a bit more there has been no more errors come up. The ecu and igniter are receiving power also which was checked as per the manual.

After doing all this the car seems no closer to being started as when it first stopped on the highway. Has anyone had any experience with this or something similar, or any info towards getting the car going again would be appreciated.

Cheers

[son of eevil]

You've replaced the plugs and leads right? That's all I can see that's missing.

[Saint Luke]

I replaced the leads. I cant see that all 4 plugs died instantly and at once, but also checking the lead out of the coil it has no spark when cranking. The igniter does have power and it has been replaced... only with a 2nd hand one but it the car it came from was running.

Pretty much stumped from here really...

[ECU-MAN]

have you checked the ECU is sending a pulse to the igniter ?

if you have not then check it. then check you have a signal coming out of the igniter to the negative side of the coil.
then check you have +12 on the positive side of the coil

if you do not have correct test equipment use a low wattage globe like one of those test lamp screw drivers for testing the coil. you should see the globe flash. do not use the lamp on the ECU output. that should only be tested with a duty meter or a scope.

have you checked your main PGMFI relay ? the ECU needs 3 power feeds VBU, IGN, and STS. IGN comes from the main PGMFI relay.

you also should test the CKP, TDC, and CYP. you need a scope or a meter that can measure duty, frequency and an ohms meter.

[Saint Luke]

Hi thanks for the reply, has taken a bit to get round to looking at the car again.

Ive checked the signal going from the ecu to the igniter with a multi-meter. Its sending a constant weak signal but its not pulsing - not sure if that is correct.

There is also no signal out of the igniter to the coil.

Both the coil and the igniter are also recieving 12v.

The PGMFI relay was checked first up and is working. What is the correct way to test for power from VBU and STS as that wasnt checked - IGN was.