Ah I see! It's funny, we've just finished a topic about inductors at uni so believe it or not that didn't go right over my head! I've been busy lately so haven't had another chance to tinker with it but I'll keep you posted when I do.
cheers

sweet, sounds good!. I agree, you shouldnt have to shuffle wiring. Do you have 12v getting to the coils as well as to the ignitor?

When a coil sparks, some of the energy is dispelled out the primary (low voltage) side of the coil. This is known as 'back EMF' The bigger the gap the spark has to jump, the more back EMF there is.
The ignitors have protection diodes, which will short any high voltage back EMF to ground, thus saving the power transistors that are switching the earths to the coils. These diodes can take a bit of abuse, but too many volts coming back will simply kill them...
The transistors are only designed to switch 12 volts, you can see upwards of 500v back EMF in open circuit hi energy ignition systems. Once the protection diodes have been killed, the transistors follow suit soon after!

Well it's got 4 out to the coils and there are coils on each cylindel. I thought this was the norm? Anyway after that last post I think I can be fairly confident that it shoudl work as I'm using complete loom, it's just a matter of plugs. There shouldn't be any reason for the messing around with the different cylinder combinations as they should be wired into their correct postitions in the plugs. Maybe I need to look elsewhere. Just a quick one, how does allowing it to spark to the block wreck the ignitor?

Bum! We can try and guess what your config is...
Well, the engine won't care, it's really down to the puter and the ignitor. AFAIK all nissan CAXXDE crangle sensors are created equal.

The engine I had, the coils had two HT outlets, and there were two of them, and they hung off a bracket on the rear of the head. This arrangement had a two channel ignitor. I've also seen engines with an individual coil per cylander, but I've never seen the ignitor(s) that go with this!
So,
how many coils do you have?
how is the ignitor configured (how many in's , how many outs)

Take a look at the connector in the loom that goes to the ignitor. It'll have connections for +12 , GND, and there will be either 2 or 4 wires go to the brain, and either 2 or 4 wires go to the coils
If there are 2in, 2out you have a wastedspark setup, and you'll need dual coils (I use mitsi ones). Wire both HT's of one coil to plugs 1and4 , and both HT's of the other coil to plugs 2and3. If it blows flames, swap 1/4 with 2/3. Dont forget to put a supressor across the +12v connection on the coils.

If there are 4in, 4out you have a sequential setup, and a much larger number of possibilities.. One of them will work, a lot of them will spit and cough, two of them may actually make it run on a couple of cylanders!!

It's not as hard as it appears if you keep all this in the back of your mind...

what you say Tsillay is not encouraging because my engine, loom and coil ignitor all came from different cars! So that would mean that the bits I have would only work if they all happened to be of the same spark sequence originally? you don't know how I can find out what my engine and ignitor are configured for do you?

Hey, as Dattodue says, when you switch on , the fuelpump should run for 5 secs.
If this is happening, disconnect the pump, and spin the crank angle sensor by hand. you should hear a rattle outa the injectors. (dont worry, you cant put the crangle sensor back in the wrong position)
If this is cool , it means you're 90% of the way there.
The only thing left is to get the coil wiring sorted. Get a timing light in there, you'll see it fire when you spin the crangle sensor. If it's got the coils over the plugs, you'll have to pull one out and extend it with a spare HT lead.
Dont just let it spark to the block, this'll kill igniters quicker than you can say bosch!!)
I belive that some CA's are sequential spark, some are wasted spark (fire 1,4 and 2,3 at the same time). the igniter you use and the wiring will be a little different depending.

T

I don't know how you wired yours up. You have a one in 1000 chance of it being faulty hardware. It's sooo much more likely it's a wiring error. This isn't a dig at you, I've seen factory wiring diags that are wrong.

Be sure to tape/record the noises of the engines coming to life.
In my family, I always call up my brother before starting up an engine for the first time. He does the same. The call normally starts with the noise of a starting engine..I think "what the hell!", then my brother will come on the line and tell me what engine it is I'm listening to. It's always good fun.

Unless you toasted the ignitor pack/s with wiring mistakes...it won't be that, although from the factory, being attached to the engine is a method of factory planned obselescence. Transisitor's biggest enemy is heat. Best to move them into the car's cabin.

Chris

Hey guys, have made a small amount of progress. (Due to the use of the pin-outs and also the workshop manual on Datnet.org.) We have now established 12v across the coil ignitor when ignition is on, didn't get a chance to check if it was sparking because I had to run out to work but if it's not sparking now I think I can asssume it's a faulty coil ignitor or even coil pack on cylinder. Does that sound correct to anyone?

No problemo

Hey nice site too.

Always good to add more to that Favourites folder.

Regards,

Mildman. No sweat I've got my trusty translated FAX's from Japan from about 1992.

They are online at http://www.shoeys.com/diag/

My domain is being transferred at the moment for an upgrade, so it might be down for the next day or so.

Chris.