88' carburtated festiva... spark arching off of coil

[heavypork]

ok, i have a 88 problematic festiva.
heres the long saga....

I drove it through a puddle which turned out to be more like a river.
it sucked in water and blew the head gasket.
When i finally went to change it i planed the head and did everything correctly. but was still leaking coolant into oil. I then retryed it again two more times, using indian head gasket sealant and copper gasket spray. but still leaked.
i gave up on it for about half a year, and now i decided to try it again but this time im using copper permatex in addition to the head gasket and torqued everything down right... Now, NO more leak.

the new problem:
it idles fine,(a little high) but it sounds healthy, then when i give it gas its just has sparks arching all around the coil. ive already replaced the cap and rotor last year and only got like 500 miles on it before the car just sat. I have new spark plug wires. i took off the coil cleaned the terminals, checked the spark plugs.

the spark is sparking from the negative connection on the coil around the center piece and sparking against the positive side, and no matter what i do to tape it up or put rubber around it, it doesnt stop. Is the coil bad possibly? or i was thinking maybe when i took the head off i got some oil drippin into the disty cap. any ideas?

[packrat427]

I am guessing that you replaced the coil wire also ,did you pull the boot back ,seat the coil wire fully into the coil tower,then pull the boot down .
Did you check to make sure all the grounds sre attatched after the head repair.
You may have a cracked tower on the coil ,if the coil was hot and all that water may have cracked it at that time ,If all the other stuff is good ,I would still screw a set of plugs into it ,just to eliminate secondary voltage stacking up.

[heavypork]

i replaced the coil wire and seated the wire into it properly, then slid the boot over it. i took the coil out and cleaned it off, and even unbolted the inside piece that the coil wire goes too, and it exposed the internals of the coil kinda. Theres oil inside it or something. i cleaned off the metal conducter thing from the coil, sanded it down ruffly then screwed it back into the top with a philips head screwdriver. The this is the first time it started to ground out, since the puddle. i drove it with the leakin head gasket for a few hundred miles and never had ignition problems, but i think that because i let it sit for a while it screwed somethin up, or maybe when i took off the head recently, it might have driped some of the oil into the distributor. I was told by a few people to spray everythign with silicone to protect it from arching onto anything. Like i said the engine runs fine, but when i try to give it gas and get it to move then the sparks start happening alottt. when its idling, it only arcs a little bit and you cna hear the crackling.
the Positive side of the coil has a rubber boot thing that covers the terminal but the negative side doesnt. Is it supposed to maybe?

[packrat427]

Did it start all that after you put the wires on ?
you should not need to silicon it ,You just may have a bad set of wires ,it is possible ,assembled wrong ,high resistance.

[heavypork]

no actually it was doing this, then after trying everything i went to the store and purchased new wires, installed them and still nothing. Its not like the spark is coming out of the top of the coil. Its going from the negative termanal and sparking around the middle piece and onto the positive or vice verse. Im trying everything i can to block it from arcing to the other terminal, but its not stopping it.

[packrat427]

It has almost got to be a cracked tower on the coil then . Voltage leaking out ,and gets worse as the voltage increases.
dripping oil in the disty would not cause that either.

[project b6t]

make sure the ground from the head to the body is clean. since you have taken off the head so many times you should make sure that ground wire that comes off the head is clean and good cause if the coil cant ground to the head through the spark plugs then its going to go to the closest ground which happens to be on the coil it self.

If that does nothing, go get a coil from advanced auto or some thing. Can't be to expensive and if that doesn't fix it you can always return it :roll: (that doesn't sound like i know from experience does it??? :idea: )

[project b6t]

holly poop i just realized you were from CT! where abouts man!? im near danbury. You gona come to festiva festival 2006?! :twisted:

[heavypork]

I didnt even know about it, but if i can get my car running i dont see why not.
im In clinton its about 30 minutes from new haven, 50 minutes from hartford and 25 minutes from mohegan sun.

[WmWatt]

I'd check the charging voltage. Maybe the voltage regulator on the alternator is gone and you are getting high voltage off it when you step on the gas and it starts charging? Ah, I really don't know what I'm writing here, just using my imagination.

[heavypork]

Can someone with a carburated festiva take a picture of their coil and the wires around it, so i can just double check to make sure everythings correct.

[heavypork]

ok so the red wire on my electric choke wasnt connected to the altenator which seemed to get rid of the arcing, and the slower starting, but the car still wants to bog a little and stalls out unless i play with the clutch. maybe bad gas since its been sittin.