Ok, so I go outside to try to start my Fiero formula, but it did not start. I thought to myself "Oh, its no big deal, I'll just push it into the barn and put it on the car lift. so I finally get it on the lift and i begin doing the process of elimination. first, I checked if I had fuel pressure. Check. next i checked if I had spark. Na da. to test the spark I tried testing it by pulling the spark plug off the engine. when I found I wasn't getting spark to the plug, I unplugged the spark plug and tested the wire. still no spark. after that i checked the coil and it seemed to be working fine, but spark was still not getting to my engine. I checked the plug wires as well with a multi meter to see if they were functional, and yes indeed they were. clearly I'm getting a charge, but I'm not getting any spark.
hopefully someone else has any ideas, because i read through the sections in the chiltons, haynes AND the 1988 factory service manual to no prevail.
Thank you for the help guys, turns out it was the distributor plug module. I think that's what its called at least. Now my Fiero is actually running better than it ever has before.
Thank you for the help guys, turns out it was the distributor plug module. I think that's what its called at least. Now my Fiero is actually running better than it ever has before.
Excellent! (Plug module?)
Regardless, thanks for popping back in and sharing what the fix was.
You do not mention if it is 4 cylinder or 6. I am not sure if it matters. My white 88 GT has an issue where the metal connections on the pick up coil have gotten rusty. When you take the cap off, you are likely to see a ton of rust on parts of the distributor especially if it lives outside. The distributor is not sealed against moisture!
The first time it happened was when we were on the road back after picking up the car in Dayton. What happens is if the connector gets warm, the metal expands and no longer makes contact.
The *FIRST* thing to try if you have a no ignition issue is to take off the cap and plug and unplug the pickup coil several times and try again. You might also notice some rust on the two blade connections on the ignition module if that is the issue. Not sure how you fix this problem short of taking the distributor out and replacing the pickup coil assembly.
Of course, this migh not have been your problem at all, but now this failure mode is documented.