No Spark Gurus - What to do when you've tried everything? Topic is solved

[nightdrive]

Thanks for the help guys. Unfortunately there's no spark coming from the coil to even reach the distributor so it seems to be before that point in the ignition system.

I borrowed a crank sensor this afternoon and it made no difference. So that makes both cam and crank sensors swapped for working ones, the coil itself, the lead from the coil just in case, all J relays, master fuel relay on radiator and all of the other bigger ones in the fuse box area. Also checked every fuse and they all look fine. Running out of motivation as this is pretty frustrating, so I'm ready to hand it over to the guys at the shop and let them deal with it.

[Sommerfeldt]

As a last ditch effort - have you actually checked that the coil is capable of producing a spark? I may have missed something in reading this thread, but it looks to me like if the coil has power to it, but doesn't produce anything, then it might need a good talking to.

- S

[misha]

We didn't got a confirmation about the main fuel injection relay...the grey one...on cooling fan carrier,cap & rotor and fuses.
Did you swapped them and checked them?

[jreed]

Rereading the thread, unless I'm missing something it sounds like you have checked everything except the ECU. The problem almost always isn't in the ECU, but since you have checked everything else there is nothing left to check but the ECU.

[nightdrive]

Guess we'll find out tomorrow - booked in and tow truck organised. Thanks for the help anyway guys, will report back with what it was once things are sorted.

[nightdrive]

So, turns out it was a broken timing belt that's bent the valves. $2500ISH to fix plus the $475 registration that's due means it's most likely going to be broken down into parts (not sure yet). RIP 850r :'(

[MadeInJapan]

OH No!!! I hate that for you. How in the world do you think it broke? There was no indication from what all you posted that it could have been that. Had the 850r been serviced in regards to the TB? Had it been done on time? Btw, several years ago 30K miles after a TB replacement, mine went just driving down the road...nothing out of the ordinary at all (no sound- no nothing to alert me)...it ended up being the metal cap on the tensioner pulley that vibrated and fell off in the TB path that made the belt jump teeth and all my exhaust valves were bent...the mechanic showed me the metal cap that was squashed and sitting at the bottom of the crank shaft area. I did have the car towed and paid to have upper engine work done. On ignition, all I had was a spinning sound (much like yours) with nothing catching. Until it was diagnosed (by someone else as it did not occur to me to even lift the cover to look at the belt), I did not know what had happened. I thought it was some weird electrical quirk. Btw, there is a sweet spot to this story. All of my parts for the failed TB were bought from FCPEuro. That said, they were very nice to send me all parts (bolts, anaroebic sealer, new belt, tensioner, pulley, even valves) for my mechanic who was doing the job. FCPEuro really came through as they felt their "kit" they had sold me failed. After this, the INA tensioner pulleys have become pretty much flawless and I noticed that many of them have an open face (you can see the bolt through the middle of them) with no more cap that can fall off!