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Post by austynn2001 on Jun 1, 2017 18:27:43 GMT -5
Hello, I'm almost done with the engine rebuild on the ol' Justy. One of my last things to figure out is the new distributor. The car is an 89 that came carbureted. I just had the block freshened up and got a rebuilt EFI head with intake manifold that I adapted a 40mm Harley CV carb to. To my surprise (not surprised at all-these little Subarus are very strange compared to my usual Imprezas), the carb cars distributor didn't fit in the EFI head. So I ordered a new EFI distributor. It just showed up and fits well in the head, but now I have a 4 wire distributor and only 2 wires on the plug for the old distributor. Any ideas? I'm hoping that I only need to use two wires on the new distributor (sounds too good to be true) or perhaps replace some of the guts in the new distributor with some guts out of the old distributor? I looked briefly for wiring diagrams, but the ones I found give no specifics on what the wires are for. Any ideas? I'm so close to being able to try to start this thing up and this just became my biggest roadblock thus far.
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Post by austynn2001 on Jun 1, 2017 20:04:19 GMT -5
OK now that I'm on the couch not being distracted by all the other little things that car needs, I think I came up with a answer. Hopefully. Using the wiring diagrams on revbase, I see that two of the four wires on the EFI dist. do the same thing as the two on the carbed dist. It doesn't show what the other two do on the EFI dist, but I figure the car won't be looking for them anyways. So I solder the two sets together to some other two wire plugs and fire it up! Keeping my fingers crossed.
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Post by subru on Jun 2, 2017 4:14:16 GMT -5
Could you take a picture of the wiring you soldered together?
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Post by austynn2001 on Jun 2, 2017 6:16:09 GMT -5
I haven't done the work yet. That was just an idea I came up with. I'm hoping for some feedback or a better idea today, but I plan on doing the job after work tonight. I'll take some pictures of what I end up doing. I plan on starting a thread with pictures of this build as I don't think it's been done before and hopefully it will become a viable alternative to an EFI or a Weber swap.
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Post by subru on Jun 3, 2017 6:29:21 GMT -5
That sounds great. Keep it up!
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Post by madmatt on Jun 4, 2017 9:14:01 GMT -5
I used the carbed disty... it fits... it just doesn't line up with the slots to adjust it. 2 options. fill the old holes, then drill and tap the head to match the disty.. Trim the disty ears and use a big wide washer on the bolt to "bridge the gap". This is what I did, and it seems to work when I don't forget to tighten it down after messing with it! This also allows for dialing in a bit more advance if you are not running the vacuum advance...
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Post by austynn2001 on Jun 4, 2017 17:05:55 GMT -5
Matt, I'm glad to see you in here. I ended up using the distributor that came in this 89. I cut some slots for the bolts and used washers just like you said. I had to replace the wires going into the distributor because mine were so brittle. But I still have no spark. New cap, rotor, coil, plugs and wires. I've tried hooking the wires to the distributor up both ways. Still nothing. Any ideas?
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Post by austynn2001 on Jun 4, 2017 17:08:42 GMT -5
Even if the timing is way off, I should still have spark while cranking, correct? I pulled the #1 plug and put it in the wire and see no spark while cranking.
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Post by austynn2001 on Jun 5, 2017 7:20:00 GMT -5
I see some people have had their igniters fail. Hopefully that's not my problem because I don't have a spare. The funny part is that I had spark for a minute. It was trying to start and filled my garage up with smoke. I'm going to start over fresh tonight after work with cylinder 1 at TDC and go from there. I might open the slots up more to get more room for adjustment. I just made the slots where the bolts were positioned before I took everything apart. Do you know of any way to test the igniter?
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Post by austynn2001 on Jun 6, 2017 7:23:56 GMT -5
Well I started over last night. Got #1 at TDC, opened the slots in the distributor up the rest of the way, installed it and checked my wiring fix within the distributor. All seems well there. I've got lots of resistance across the distributor which tells me it's ok. I had power at the blk/wht wire at the coil with the key on. I had a small amount of power at the blk/red wire to the ignitor with key off and 12v with the key on. I was doing some reading last night and found a few people having similar issues and their fixes were all the ignitor. I've never had one go bad on any of my other Subarus, but figure it's worth a shot. So I ordered two used ones and then found a brand new one for an 86-88 nissan sentra that looks identical. I ordered that one too. Just in case. Hopefully I'll have at least one by the weekend. If that doesn't fix it, anyone want to buy a Justy?
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Post by madmatt on Jun 6, 2017 9:20:51 GMT -5
Sorry for the delay...
Have you checked to see if you have spark "minus" the disty? So just plugged into the coil wire? Could be as simple as a bad cap...
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Post by austynn2001 on Jun 6, 2017 11:06:20 GMT -5
I have not done that. You mean see if there's power on the wire to the center of the distributor from the coil? It's a brand new cap and I kept the old one that seemed to work fine on the maiden voyage to the house.
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Post by austynn2001 on Jun 7, 2017 8:37:51 GMT -5
I tried the old distributor cap last night. No luck. The brand new ignitor is supposed to show up on Friday. I tried looking up how to test the ignitor last night and found nothing I could use. Man I hate electrical work. Definitely my weakest area.
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Post by austynn2001 on Jun 7, 2017 8:40:35 GMT -5
On a side note, what temperature thermostats do these things like? I need to get one for the inline thermostat housing I got.
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Post by austynn2001 on Jun 10, 2017 12:37:40 GMT -5
I tried the new ignitor with the wiring two different ways (the plug to the body harness is different) and that didn't work. So I found a thread where Armageddous posted how to check for power at the black/red wire to the ignitor with the key in run. I have power there. Then he says to check for power between that wire and the yellow/blue wire while cranking the engine. I don't have any power while cranking. What would be causing that? I also have power at both wires to the distributor with the key in run.
In other news, I scored a pretty nice 91 Legacy Sport Sedan this morning for a pretty good price. I don't need it at all, but I couldn't pass up the deal. Closed deck goodness!
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Post by austynn2001 on Jun 11, 2017 13:36:55 GMT -5
Also, the tach doesn't move when it's cranking. This sucks. I just adjusted the air gap in the distributor to .013 and still nothing. I didn't think this would be my biggest issue.
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Post by austynn2001 on Jun 12, 2017 19:16:19 GMT -5
As frustrating as this may be, I haven't given up yet. On the connector for the ignitor with the key off, I show about half a volt on the black wire. Key on shows full voltage at the black/white wire, white wire and black wire. Just a trace of power at the yellow/blue wire. I tried the Nissan ignitor in a couple different configurations with no results. I do get some power between the distributor wires while cranking the engine over and over 900 ohms when not cranking. So I think the distributor is fine. I've tried the original coil and the brand new coil. I'm thinking this car will not be making it to WBM this year.
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Post by austynn2001 on Jun 14, 2017 5:38:17 GMT -5
I think I need to focus on the yellow/blue wire going to the ignitor. I'll chase that down tonight and see where exactly it goes.
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Post by austynn2001 on Jun 14, 2017 18:18:29 GMT -5
Are there any sensors that I'm missing that would make the car cut spark? The only sensors I have hooked up are the oil pressure, water temp and o2. None of the old carb stuff or any of those solenoids or whatever that were all over the firewall.
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Post by austynn2001 on Jun 14, 2017 19:47:11 GMT -5
I got somewhere tonight. I have no continuity on the yellow/blue wire from the ignitor plug to the ECU or whatever it's called in the Justy world. The wire looks fine and I stripped a little section about 6" from the plug and tried there too. Still nothing. So I'm wondering if it goes somewhere else first. I think I'm going to try to figure out how to get that wire out of the ECU plug and run a different wire to see if it works.
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