Igniter pack, a few questions.

[cbileske]

My car has a intermittent misfire, seems to be either the connections at the igniter or the igniter itself. Right now I have my coil pack cover off the engine and the igniter is just zip tied to the pcv line. Does the igniter need a ground attached to it, or is it grounded through the harness? Is there anyway to test the igniter? And lastly, do all the rb engines use the same igniter pack?
Thanks alot.

[bobbo]

These are a common problem and yes all RB engines are the same, yes you can test them (9.5V on the coil side while cranking from pins 1-6). They do have a ground but i've seen people running fine without the ground. I'd suggest grounding it as that's what the manufacturer did.

[judasentinel]

There is no separate ground wire on the ignitors. The RB20/26 ignitors are interchangeable (they are ffectively the same) and the RB25 ignitor is different. The main difference is one extra wire on one side of the RB25 ignitor, which is for ground for the coil harness. The RB20/26 ignitors dont have that extra wire (they have 6 wires coming from the ECU and 6 wires going to the coils). The coil harness on an RB20/26 engine has a separate ground wire, which is bolted down towards the back of the engine, between the two valve covers.

The ignitor, as far as I know, is simply an amplifier that amplifies the spark signal coming from the ECU and leading to the coils. The seventh wire on the RB25 ignitor is actually the ground for the coils on an RB25 engine.

A misfire could be caused by a multitude of reasons, ranging from weak coils, to runnign too rich, to ignition tmiing or faulty ignitor itself, etc..

[love_boost]

yeah an intermittent missfire usually means a coil is on its way out, maybe once the missfire shows up you could start unplugging the coils one by one to find the bad cylinder?

[bobbo]

There is no separate ground wire on the ignitors. The RB20/26 ignitors are interchangeable (they are ffectively the same) and the RB25 ignitor is different. The main difference is one extra wire on one side of the RB25 ignitor, which is for ground for the coil harness. The RB20/26 ignitors dont have that extra wire (they have 6 wires coming from the ECU and 6 wires going to the coils). The coil harness on an RB20/26 engine has a separate ground wire, which is bolted down towards the back of the engine, between the two valve covers.

The ignitor, as far as I know, is simply an amplifier that amplifies the spark signal coming from the ECU and leading to the coils. The seventh wire on the RB25 ignitor is actually the ground for the coils on an RB25 engine.

A misfire could be caused by a multitude of reasons, ranging from weak coils, to runnign too rich, to ignition tmiing or faulty ignitor itself, etc..

I have a ground coming from the harness to the corner mounting bolt of the ignitor. Another looped wire/ground from the coil harness to the rear bolt that secures the coil bracket.

You can check your coils with an ohm meter. Should be about .7 ohms. Also what are your plugs gapped to and how much boost are you running?

[cbileske]

I am running just over 1 bar, the coils only have about 5000km on them. Spark plugs are about 1000km old and are basic NGK plugs gapped at .8 I did have iridiums in before these ones with the same issue. Could a rich condition from
venting to atmosphere cause it to start missing? I may put in a recirc. pipe.

[cbileske]

Tested the coils while hot and they are all .8 ohms. Voltage while running is only 13.7volts, usually it should be around 14.3 - 14.7?

[bobbo]

Tested the coils while hot and they are all .8 ohms. Voltage while running is only 13.7volts, usually it should be around 14.3 - 14.7?

Your coils sound good. The impedence should be higher with and increase in Temperature.
The voltage you want to check is on the coil side of the ignitor at pins 1-6 and should be about 9.5 volts.

[cbileske]

It seems like as soon as it starts to fart, I can get it to run good by either wiggling the wires on the front or rear side of the igniter.

[DarkCaporaL]

Are your wires old and crispy? They might be shorted somewhere...

[cbileske]

Yeah they are a little. i'm going to meter out all the wires on the coil harness tonight, see if any have a noticably high resistance. What would a faulty cas sensors symtoms be? How can u test it for errors?

[Skym]

When ignition module fails, engine can stall after roughly 10 minutes of driving (when ignition module gets hot enough) and won't start for another 10 minutes or so (ignition module cools down). But it's known to stop some coilpacks firing when ignition module gets hot enough. Using a oscillioscope can help to check for faulty ignition module and lightly hitting ignition module with rubber hammer can sometimes bring up a fault. But be careful, as can crack the casing on ignition module.

Initial symptoms of faulty CAS is that it makes engine hard to start when cold or hot and get CAS error code on ECU. Engine stalls when CAS gets worse, but have never let it get that far. I know one of my mates with a Skyline has let it get that far, but I haven't.

Coilpack loom is a common failure part when it gets hard as a ironing board and won't flex. Replace coilpack loom if it is hard as ironing board. Injector loom is the same. Both looms should be replaced, as they are close to engine.

When coilpacks fail, they can break down when reving engine or at idle (runs on 5 cylinders). Unplugging 1x coilpack at a time can help to find faulty coilpack, as it won't affect engine.

Intermittent stuttering can be a airleak just behind MAF. Sounds and feels similar to when engine runs on 5 cylinders due to coilpack failure.

If missing every once and while at idle, unplug 02 sensor and you'll notice it will stop. What's happening is engine is running richer (just like Judasentinel mentioned) and o2 sensor makes it run richer again. It means ECU needs to be retuned.