The car started fine a couple of days ago, now it cranks but doesnt seem to have spark. I put a paper clip in the coil pack harness on the wire on the left on one of the cylinders and touched it to the plenum and the car started but as soon as off took it off the car died? Does this still mean its the PTU?



Thanks
Tomas

 

i don't know what that means, that it started with the paper clip, but to remove doubt, you can just clean the connections on the ptu to start, clean them very well, and if that doesn't work, use a multimeter and run through the tests for the ptu in the online fsm. google search 300zx fsm for that. that will tell you if it's the ptu

 

I'd say it means you have a bad ground... because when you touched it to the plenum, which is grounded, you grounded the wire and it ran fine.

 

I thought this too but the only grounds that i see are on the plenum at the back. I believe that those are the grounds for the coils and they seem right.

Tomas

 

Then the wire between the ground and the coil pack you grounded manually is bad... duh.

 

Wouldn't that just cause one cylinder to misfire? The wires that i see that are grounded are individual to each cylinder. Are there any ground wires that run though the PTU? I just got this car so if there are any dumb question i apologize just trying to get her up and running.


Thanks
Tomas

 

Every electronic device has a ground... else it wouldn't work.

 

if each plug is grounded separately, it wouldn't make sense that it started when you grounded just one of them.

 

Then maybe the ground didn't get through the PTU and it started when it got the ground from the plenum? I have my friend bring a meter tomorrow night to check the PTU.

Thanks
Tomas

 

before that though just clean all the connections. i can't tell you how often the only thing wrong with these cars is a corroded connection. just pull them off, scrape them with a screw driver, spray wd-40, wipe them off, and stick them back on with dielectric grease. and make sure that they all are gripping tight. it's pretty self explanatory how to stick a pick down in them and make them grip their posts harder.