cincy and ignition problem

[sciroccos at earthlink.net (Jim Ruffi)]

>Along the lines of what Cathy's talking about, most CIS cars have a
>wire running from the solonoid to the ignition coil to insure good
>voltage to the coil when cranking.  You may wish to check that yours
>isn't missing, broken, or otherwise not functioning as advertised.
>
>Drew

I'll check the diagram/car for that one.

I did check all grounds in the engine bay, as I mentioned before.  Checked
the ground strap to the trans mount and the cluster of grounds on the back
of the intake maniold.  Checked the coil low-voltage wires.  Checked
continuity of all ground wires and installed additional grounds and jumper
cables to beef it up during testing....no dice....I only get a spark AFTER I
stop cranking the starter, which tells me the car will probably bump start
just fine.  I still plan to replace the battery negative cable and crimp new
ends on all of the ground wires....have to buy the OE brass ring terminals
from Wurth first, though :-)

The PO put new plug and coil wires on the car, presumably to correct the
problem.  I ran through all of the Bentley tests and it pointed to a bad
ICU, however, when I drop the fuse panel, the car seems to start right up.
Last night, I pulled all of the connections from the back of the fuse
panel....looked ok, except for a dab of corrosion that got my attention.
Put the box back in place...no spark while cranking......
grabbed at the wires on the left side - no luck
tugged at the wires on the right side - started right up

I can't locate the exact wire that might be causing this.  I might actually
need a new fuse panel...it could be that the wire tugging just stresses the
panel enough to bridge some loose connection somewhere.

What frustrates me off is that I feel that the info the Bentley provides is
not detailed enough.  It would help if the various black boxes were expained
a bit more, as far a functionality...some logic info and a breakdown of the
purpose of every external connection....but I'm asking for a lot.

Jim