6G Celicas Forums

Great success! I had a fresh pair of eyes look at the BEAMS a little while ago. Of course it would be something little that I would forget to do. He got in the car and went for a ten second ride and heard a sound that I assumed was my exhaust leak and he says "You're running on three cylinders." I told him I thought that was where the header met the B pipe, where I couldn't really get under the car and fit it together 100% tight and he said he heard that too, and that sound was accentuating the chugging sound of a four cylinder motor running on three cylinders. We take it back to his house and start unplugging coils and sure enough, unplug the coil on cylinder #3, and absolutely nothing changed. We checked the injectors, all 4 were running great. Took the spark plug out of cylinder 3 and it still looks brand new. I've got probably 100 miles on them now so the other three are a brownish color, but that spark plug is still bright silver. I know the heat from the motor can make the coil wires a little brittle so I'm waiting for the motor to cool down then I'm going to start taking the wiring apart to see if I can find the issue.

In other news, I've overheated my vacuum 4 times now trying to clean my red car up. And there were purple neons in the foot wells. I promptly deposited those in the trash. It looks like it has MTX speakers in the front and I haven't checked the rear yet, but the system sounds good. All the wiring I need for a sound system is already in place. Definitely gonna do some sound insulation on that car and get the tranny rebuilt.

Try swapping the coil with a different coil to see it its just a bad coil.. i wouldnt wanna tear into the wiring so fast lol

Already did. The misfire stayed on cylinder 3. I can tell you that the problem isn't right on top of the motor. It has to be a bit farther down. I'm going to check into it a little more tomorrow.

good luck with that. u can also swap fuel injector plugs to fee if it changes anything, though u already determined you are getting fuel to that cyl

^this.

If the plug is still bright silver, that tells me that its a fuel issue. If it was a spark issue, you would assume that there would be some sign that there's been fuel sprayed on that injector.

Am I making sense here?

We checked for spark. There was nothing. Running it without the spark plug, fuel was shooting out of the cylinder.

hmmmm. Ok. Nevermind then lol

so there is no spark?

check the grounds..... you may have a loose wire or a short.

Only on cylinder 3. Unfortunately, I'll be rummaging around the motor tonight, trying to figure out where the wires go. Good thing I have that Greytop I can tear apart first.

if i recall correclty the coils have a ground and a positive terminal..


try to look if the positive terminal is firing. simply use a multimeter and ground it to the car chassis.. if you get firing then its a ground issue, those grounds go all the way into the main harness and loop around and attach below the manifold...



when i did my swap i checked my whole harness to make sure, and i even changed the plastic looms to new ones..

but just trace the positive, and do the multimeter test. if there is power, then you have a ground issue... even the conector just spray crc, sometimes oil is the culprit..

im pretty sure its a ground switching system. most circuits are, since npn transistors are cheaper and faster. one pin should has constant 12v while the other should have a switching ground.

pin 1 to ground = 12v
pin 2 to B+ = a reading greater than 0.7v and less than 12v probably in the 3v region at idle

I can't say I have a multimeter. Just a crappy test light. I'm about to start dissecting my Greytop so I have a good idea of where the wires go so I don't mess anything up on the Redtop. There can only be a short list of potential culprits for one cylinder not firing. I'm ready to get this thing back on the road and at full power. It's already decent fun on three cylinders. Side note, this car runs better before the motor gets warmed up. Not sure if that tidbit helps anyone but it definitely runs better when it's cold. Fortunately, the thermostat is stuck open so it takes longer to warm up.

Edit: By the way, Noberto, that's a really depressing picture to post. I went and checked the back of my Greytop and I see everything you just posted there... Not a fun place to get to with the motor in the car. This motor was shipping laying down on the back of the block and when it got here, it always wanted to fall over backwards. I bet that's where my problem is. Now the great debate of pulling the motor out a little bit or trying to fight it and leave it bolted in...

This post has been edited by richee3: Aug 1, 2011 - 4:33 PM

Got the exhaust leak fixed, at least. I just tested and I have good power and ground to that coil. I traced the other two wires back to the ECU. They seem to be fine but I haven't had a way to test them. Everything under the manifold looks good. The toiling continues...

i didnt look at the wiring diagram so i thought the ignitor would be internal to the ecu.

you should pick up a cheap multimeter. do yall have a harbor freight up there? they sell an acceptable one for like 5$

I'm actually going to Harbor Freight tomorrow, conveniently enough. The wiring diagram looks like it shows the igniter being external. I know for the BEAMS swap you take your old 5S igniter and deposit it in the scrap metal pile and you never plug another one back in. I'm looking for that right now.

make sure the bridges you made in the ea1 plug are ok too...

the ignitor is internal to the coil

looks like...

white(pin1) = B+
brown(pin4) = ground
pin2 = spark confirm, or something similar.. tells the ecu when spark happens
pin3 = signal. tells the ignitir to turn on to charge the coil. this is probably a low voltage positive signal

pin 3 IGT is a +5v signal

Noberto- the connection is good. If it's bad, I wouldn't have any spark at all on any cylinder. I did check tonight though. I definitely have power and ground. The igniter is inside the coil, but there's still a signal inside the ECU that tells the igniter when to fire... and I think that's my problem. The other 3 cylinders work perfectly. I'll be picking up the multimeter tomorrow to triple check my other two wires, but the wires themselves are intact and actually in good condition. So it could be a problem in the ECU. Now I have to test that. Fun stuff. I took a look under my red Celica today... Not looking so hot there. There was definitely some transmission casing laying on the ground and definitely a gear hanging out there. Looks like a busted diff. I don't know my transmissions so I'm gonna post a picture and see what you guys think. But the transmission casing and the drain plug hanging out in this piece on the ground tells me that this tranny cannot be rebuilt.

Well... I enjoy making fun of him more than I like bragging about him... but Daniel is a Celica god of some sort. My car is running. It feels and sounds amazing. I'm in love all over again....