1988 V4 110hp Crossflow. I was running it at home on muffs but the motor got hot fast so went to shut it off with the key but it kept running. I panicked and yanked the plug wires to kill the motor. Worried I had damaged the ignition by pulling the wires I got the spark tester out; to my relief all 4 cylinders jumped a 7/16" gap. I fixed the cooling issue (new diverter hoses in the block) and ignition interrupt circuit so I could shut it off properly and took it to the lake for it's initial test run after a full rebuild.
Motor sounded good but no power, couldn't even get the boat on plane. Back home I checked compression which was good on all four. Spark jumped the gap on cylinders 2-4 but the coil on cyl 1 was kaput. While diagnosing the bad coil (swapping coils) I noticed when using the spark tester the sparks started deteriorating on the 3 working coils. First the spark got weaker looking, then intermittent and then disappeared altogether. Now none of the 3 coils will jump a 7/16" gap on the tester but they do show a decent spark on a grounded spark plug. The number one coil shows nothing on a grounded plug.
I am kicking myself for pulling the wires to shut off the motor. Of course I need to replace the number one coil. Should I replace the powerpack or could it be something else? I don't want to just throw parts at it and I don't have the sophisticated tools needed for diagnosing the ignition components.
Motor sounded good but no power, couldn't even get the boat on plane. Back home I checked compression which was good on all four. Spark jumped the gap on cylinders 2-4 but the coil on cyl 1 was kaput. While diagnosing the bad coil (swapping coils) I noticed when using the spark tester the sparks started deteriorating on the 3 working coils. First the spark got weaker looking, then intermittent and then disappeared altogether. Now none of the 3 coils will jump a 7/16" gap on the tester but they do show a decent spark on a grounded spark plug. The number one coil shows nothing on a grounded plug.
I am kicking myself for pulling the wires to shut off the motor. Of course I need to replace the number one coil. Should I replace the powerpack or could it be something else? I don't want to just throw parts at it and I don't have the sophisticated tools needed for diagnosing the ignition components.