Regal chugging and hesitation during acceleration

[cckeeler]

Alright, well I went and bought me a spark tester, but I must have bought the wrong kind. I hooked it up for each cylinder and they all show an orange quickly blinking light. I do not see a difference with any one cylinder though. They all appear the same.

Unfortunately I am not understanding what you are saying about testing the resistance though. I do have a DMM, if possible can you elaborate more on the process of testing the resistance?

Thanks

 

[HotZ28]

Electronic Ignition Spark Tester OTC 6589 - Spark Tester for Electronic Ignition Price $12.58

Check no-start cars for ignition problems. Unplug the plug wire, connect this part, clamp the tester to a good engine ground, crank the engine and watch for spark. A properly working electronic ignition system will be able to jump a spark across the tester's spark gap, preset at .250 inch. Two 7230 testers are recommend for checking spark on DIS or EDIS applications. By using two, you can check individual coil packs.

You will have to remove the coil(s) to test primary resistance. The female terminals are on the bottom of the coil. Testing the secondary is just simply placing you test leads across both plug wire terminals on the coil.

 

[cckeeler]

Yeah, looks like I bought the wrong kind of tester. That being said, I didn't see any difference so I'm going to move forward with testing the resistance. I will post my finding when I have them.

Also, I know you mentioned a vacuum test. Would that be measuring something other than what the vacuum shows on a scanner?

 

[HotZ28]

Also, I know you mentioned a vacuum test. Would that be measuring something other than what the vacuum shows on a scanner?

The vacuum on the scanner reads only what the MAP sensor sends to the PCM. On a S/C engine, that may not be as accurate as a vacuum gauge due to the vacuum/boost conditions under acceleration. In addition, if there is any problem with the MAP sensor, it may not be measuring vacuum/boost accurately.

 

[HotZ28]

Somehow, I sent a double post. Anyway, the double should be erased.

 

[cckeeler]

Well I'm tempted to stop and just grab a new ignition coil on my way home and start swapping them around to see if it makes a difference. I am getting extremely frustrated with this thing.

How would I go about ruling out a bad TCC solenoid?

 

[HotZ28]

Do a vacuum test to see if you have a broken/plugged cat.

 

[cckeeler]

I may have to take it down to an exhaust place for that one. I do not have the tools to perform that test. I'll give it a shot later this week. Until then I'm going to keep testing these coils.

 

[HotZ28]

I am not suggesting a back pressure test. A simple $10.00 vacuum gauge hooked any intake vacuum port will tell the story. Normally, the engine will pull 20-HG @ idle, when you rev the engine to 3K you should see a slight drop, but the vacuum should immediately return to 20-HG at 3K rpm. If not, and the reading is 3-5 HG lower, you have a cat problem. This is a simple test that can not be ignored. Regal's were famous for failed/clogged cats.

 

[cckeeler]

Just a quick update. I got home a little too late to do much of anything tonight but I ran out and took the car for a quick drive. I read somewhere that if you tap the brakes while the car is chugging and it stops, that it may be a sign of a bad TCC solenoid. I decided just to give it a shot. It didn't do anything. May not mean anything but it was reassuring we are heading in the right direction. I watched the vacuum pressure from the scanner. It showed -21 during idle and # 3000 RPM it went down to -23. I'm going to go and get a pressure gauge tomorrow to further test this.

 

[cckeeler]

It may be worth mentioning that when I started driving it yesterday it didn't start the chugging/hesitation in overdrive immediately. At first things were running well and then after about 5-10 minutes it started doing it. does this have anything to do with it being in an closed loop rather than open.

Either way thought I'd mention it.

 

[HotZ28]

It could be open/closed loop related, but I have also seen coils that would work fine until the engine warmed up, then start delivering a weak spark. In addition, I installed a complete set of NEW China brand coils on a customers car last year, which worked fine for about two weeks then all of a sudden, they gave the symptoms of a weak coil, only when warm. Have you purchased that new coil for testing yet?

 

[cckeeler]

Not yet, making a stop at the auto parts store this evening on my way home to grab that and the vacuum gauge.

 

[cckeeler]

Just read something on a a prior post that said I should pull the shields off the plug wires. Is that correct? Mine are all still on there. I've never seen those before on anything else I have owned.

 

[HotZ28]

What kind of wires did you install? I prefer MSD.

 

[cckeeler]

They only had one brand where I went. I believe they were supermag or something like that.

 

[HotZ28]

So are you saying, you took the heat shields off of the OEM wires and installed them on the new wires?

 

[cckeeler]

Yeah....

 

[HotZ28]

If the wires are new and of good quality, the shields should be OK. The DIS ignition does not operate well with cheap wires (too much resistance).

 

[cckeeler]

I had hoped to have more time to work on it tonight but it got dark to quickly. I do not have a garage so I'm outside shining flashlights around. I did want to check the accuracy of the misfire sensor on my scanner so I unplugged one of the fuel injectors and sure enough the misfires started adding up. So can a car misfire and not show on a scanner? during the chugging I don't ever see any misfires.