So the other day when I drove 40 minutes at 70mph or so on the highway, I noticed a couple times where I lost spark. At first I thought it was just because I was really low on gas. After filling up it happend once more a few minutes later and then none for the next couple days.
Then yesterday after sitting in rush hour traffic for about an hour on one of the first 85+ days with humidity it cut out again but didn't catch itself as quickly and i saw that it would idle just fine usually and always cut out at higher rpms, like 3400rpm or more.
That made me think that it was the igniter overheating in the MS but it definately didn't feel hot. It conked out longer today on the way home from work though... It will run longer if I keep the advance to 15 or less and after setting the advance fixed to 10 degrees I managed to make it home finally.
If the coil is the issue, does anyone know what the ideal dwell setting is for a coil from a BMW 325 is? I was running 2.6 usually and 3 on cranking just because it felt the smoothest and strongest.
I'm going to be checking my cap and rotor and spark plugs tomorrow as well.
What are the signs of a dead/dying coil?
Moderators: jsmcortina, muythaibxr
What are the signs of a dead/dying coil?
~Andrew~
1984 BMW 325e with 'i' cam and springs with custom chip. (I have finally discovered the joys of wideband o2 and hopefully will soon have working spark control.)
1984 BMW 325e with 'i' cam and springs with custom chip. (I have finally discovered the joys of wideband o2 and hopefully will soon have working spark control.)
Well today I tried driving around some after reading on some forum that some guy heard E30 guys tend to run their MS at 4ms dwell. It seemed to be alright at first but when it warmed up it seemed even more prone to cutting out.
If they say you should start around 3ms and go down until you misfire then the 2.6 I had shouldn't have caused it to burn out if other guys are running 4. He also said that people ran 4.5-5.0 and fried their coils.
I removed the right highbeam, removed the washer fluid tank, and ran a flexible hose I had up to and around the coil just to experiment. It's probably not 95 and humid anymore but I'm going to go test it now. If that plus a lower dwell doesn't get rid of the issue I may have some other sensor acting up in the higher temps.... I had the fan on full blast blowing on the floor with teh MS cover off and it didn't seem to make a difference so I don't think it's anything in the MS box.
:-/
If they say you should start around 3ms and go down until you misfire then the 2.6 I had shouldn't have caused it to burn out if other guys are running 4. He also said that people ran 4.5-5.0 and fried their coils.
I removed the right highbeam, removed the washer fluid tank, and ran a flexible hose I had up to and around the coil just to experiment. It's probably not 95 and humid anymore but I'm going to go test it now. If that plus a lower dwell doesn't get rid of the issue I may have some other sensor acting up in the higher temps.... I had the fan on full blast blowing on the floor with teh MS cover off and it didn't seem to make a difference so I don't think it's anything in the MS box.
:-/
~Andrew~
1984 BMW 325e with 'i' cam and springs with custom chip. (I have finally discovered the joys of wideband o2 and hopefully will soon have working spark control.)
1984 BMW 325e with 'i' cam and springs with custom chip. (I have finally discovered the joys of wideband o2 and hopefully will soon have working spark control.)
if anyone was curious, it ended up just being too much dwell.
If you have an e30 bmw, don' run over 2.2ms dwell even though the spark will feel stronger. I'm running 1.9ms right now and it definately is smoother but I'm thinking maybe EDIS will give me the extra spark power I want so I'll likely move to that...
If you have an e30 bmw, don' run over 2.2ms dwell even though the spark will feel stronger. I'm running 1.9ms right now and it definately is smoother but I'm thinking maybe EDIS will give me the extra spark power I want so I'll likely move to that...
~Andrew~
1984 BMW 325e with 'i' cam and springs with custom chip. (I have finally discovered the joys of wideband o2 and hopefully will soon have working spark control.)
1984 BMW 325e with 'i' cam and springs with custom chip. (I have finally discovered the joys of wideband o2 and hopefully will soon have working spark control.)