1989 Reatta - finished 8 month restoration - now with engine trouble *SOLVED*

[jonlabree]

You have two wires switched. The bottom two are reversed. They should be, top 4, bottom 1. 

[Fox W.]

You have two wires switched. The bottom two are reversed. They should be, top 4, bottom 1. 

 

Oh you are right.  This is a totally different issue of course but you know the car has never quite had the power it had before and it also has smelled a bit rich and foul.  

 

Now I'm kinda paranoid as to what harm I may have caused, this car doesn't get a lot of use but it has indeed been used about 3000 miles with those reversed!   People say they do pretty well when swapped but this well?  I had the car as fast as 110mph several times, and took it on a 12-hour round-trip with great gas-mileage.  The lack of power has been so subtle I thought it was my imagination most of the time.    Can it really feel that normal?  It has also been perfectly smooth..   People say they idle fine swapped but everyone seems to agree that under load they won't run that good.

 

Feedback appreciated.

 

The odd part is that I think someone else mentioned before that those were backwards and I didn't address it for some reason because I thought I had some reason such as knowing that just the label was wrong but wiring correct or that I had some other weird circumstance that made it ok.. I cannot recall anymore..  But nope I looked at the ICM and sure enough #1 was going to cyl 4. 

Edited September 2, 2015 by Fox W. (see edit history)

[Fox W.]

Actually doesn't each coil fire both of its leads at the same time, and therefore wiring order within each coil doesn't matter?   I'm sure someone can enlighten me.    Thanks.

[Fox W.]

"The distributorless ignition system on the 3800 V6 is a waste spark system with three ignition coils. Each pair of cylinders shares a common ignition coil. Cylinders that are opposite one another in the engine's firing order are paired so their spark plugs share the same coil. This reduces the total number of coils needed. When each coil discharges its high voltage output, it fires two spark plugs simultaneously: one when cylinder is on its compression stroke, and the other when the cylinder is on its exhaust stroke."

 

So it sounds like it shouldn't have mattered.

[jonlabree]

The 3800 engine will run with multiple wires switched, not well, but it will run. If it is in good shape it will run on 3 cylinders (same bank)

With mixed wires It runs fine although there will be less power and at extremes WOP it will break up. I can't see where it would cause any damage

but over a long period of time it might.

[Fox W.]

But like I said reversing the wires on any of the 3 coils wouldn't even be a misconfiguration because as I read it each coil is always firing both wires at the same time, and one is a wasted spark (the wasted one is on the exhaust-stroke.)  So having 1 / 4 backwards shouldn't make any difference at all.  The only time it would be bad is if wires were swapped between coils.  Someone confirm?

Edited September 2, 2015 by Fox W. (see edit history)

[Guest Flacko9091]

Sounds logical....Give it a try

[Fox W.]

Yeah it isn't seemed to make any difference.   Sadly the new converter I've put on hasn't either, I have an issue where the exhaust smells strongly of unburnt fuel and the car runs and drives almost normally but is just a bit down on power.  Need to start pulling data and see how things look. 

 

Thanks.