Is It Possible To Test An Ignition Amp?

[Guest rick03054]

I've been getting a misfire at about 4000 rpm, under any throttle conditions. Obviously at light throttle the revs stay there longer so it's more pronounced, but under heavy acceleration there's only a little 'bump' and it's fine after that.

 

A search brought up lots of info and seems to point to the ignition amp, I have a couple spare but I'd like a way to check them first before I start ripping things out. Is there any test that I can do with a multimeter to see if they are ok? or is it suck it and see?

[welshpug 1,657]

no idea how you would test one, but I had this and it dissapeared when I put a new dizzy on it...

 

try cleaning up all the earths first.

[sonofsam 5]

Not had any experience testing one myself, but is this any help:)

[stevec205gti 0]

Some garages have a tester they can pop it on - but that's not necessarily going to help if it's a intermittent fault.

 

I know how annoying this is - you've probably searched through most of my recent posts on my car with the same problem!!!!!

[Super Josh 4]

When I've had intermittent Ignition Amp. problems before, it has usually been that the heat conductive paste (as used on PC processor heatsinks) has dried out and is causing the Ignition Amp. to overheat as cause the symptoms that you describe.

So if you have a spare, it is probably worth swapping it over, but make sure you put some conductive paste on the rear of the Amp. where it touches the aluminium plate it bolts onto. Any decent PC suppliers or a local Maplins will stock it, and it's only a few pounds.

 

 

 

Josh

[Guest amg301]

Yeah if you have a spare swap them over. But check the dizzy cap and rotor arm cause i have had several problems with them causing lots of problems.

[Guest silver 1600]

I had the exact same problem when i first got my car I changed the dizzy cap HT leads and rotor arm and the fault went away so i would try that first

[Rob_the_Sparky 9]

I have experience of the AA testing my ignition amp and result was "its fine". A long time later after not being able to fix teh car I found that actually it was buggered (insensitive to the input from the dizzy so would not start the car). As a result I have little faith in the testers, even for a fault bad enough to stop a car starting...