New 88 festiva owner unsure where distributor wire goes!

[CorollaConnor]

Hello guys! I picked up an 88 festiva with a blown head gasket for very cheap! Only issue is it was partially disassembled before I picked it up which makes putting it back together slightly harder. Upon doing the head gasket and slowly assembling it I realized I have 4 wires coming out of my distributor. 3 go to the coil, and one little white plug goes somewhere else? Any ideas? Where does it go and what's it for? Is it needed? Hopefully the pictures work!

[AlaskaFestivaGuy]

See attached photo from my silver 88 LX.

[bravekozak]

They try to to make it Poke-Oke.

The two wires with the ring terminals go to the side of the coil with just a stud.
The wire with the spade terminal goes onto the other ignition coil stud with a spade adapter.

[FestYboy]

IIRC that is the condenser wire.

[CorollaConnor]

Alaska, my apologies but I don't seen an attachment.

Brave, yes! I actually just heard about the term "poke-yoke" not even a week ago. Funny you say that hah. Anyway, I've got those 3 sorte that you described,, but there's a 2nd spade adapter plug that's white, not black, and appears to have nowhere to go!

Festyboy, ah! It's the capacitor(condenser) wire? Makes sense.


Also, in case you were curious like I was, the festiva distributor fits in a Miata head! Who knew. I was a junk Miata engine laying around and put the festiva distributor in place of the Miata CAS. Could be useful for people going carb's in Miata!

[AlaskaFestivaGuy]

This site's uploader not working. Resorted to "basic uploader."

[bravekozak]

The positive wires are covered by the rubber boot. The negative spade side, not so much.

[WmWatt]

My car has one of those. There is a single white connector beside the two large white connectors show in Alaska's photo. The wiring diagram in the Haynes manual only shows three - two to the coil and one to the computer.

[CorollaConnor]

Wmwatt, maybe the 89 festiva is different? I don't have two large white connectors coming off the distributor. Hell, I don't even know if I have a computer! Haha I assume not since its carb'd and has an ICM built into the distributor. To be honest, this is my first ford besides a mustang! I've only ever owned miata's and really old corollas!

[bravekozak]

Every Festiva was born with a computer. Install an Escort carb and toss the computer.

[WmWatt]

Corolla: The two large white connecors in Alaska's photo don't come from the distributor, they come from the wiring harness. The one I wrote about is a one wire white plastic connector beside those two. It's not shown in the photo. My '89 is same as the '88, the carburetted engine.

Brave: He's in California. They're very fussy about emissions there. Doubt he could legally jettison emission controls.

[blowby]

Wmwatt, maybe the 89 festiva is different? I don't have two large white connectors coming off the distributor. Hell, I don't even know if I have a computer! Haha I assume not since its carb'd and has an ICM built into the distributor. To be honest, this is my first ford besides a mustang! I've only ever owned miata's and really old corollas!

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You don't own a Ford - you own a Mazda. The engine and drive train are Mazda -- which were shipped from Japan to Kia in Korea for assembly. Back in the late 80's Ford owned aprox. 40% of Mazda and 20 some percent of Kia. They just stuck their name plate on a car which was designed by Mazda.

[blowby]

3 wires go from the distributor to the coil.

If you have 3 wires "coming out of" the distributor -- 2 of them go to the coil -- black and white to POS and blue to NEG ---- and the third one is for an altitude sensor which advances timing as the barometric altitude sensor sees a pressure drop. It's not required for the eng to operate as it only reacts to altitude changes above about 3000 ft.
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The 3rd wire from the distributor to the coil is mounted on the outside body and is a small black wire going to POS on the coil.
This is on my 89 ........ think 1988's are the same.

[WmWatt]

There are actually 3 wires from the distributor - a small diameter blue wire which ends in a white single wire connector and goes from the A post on the ICM to the computer, a large diameter blue wire which goes from the C post on the ICM to the negative post on the coil, and a large diameter black wire with a white stripe which goes from the B post on the ICM to the positive post on the coil. The black wire from the condenser to the positive post on the coil doesn't come from inside the distributor, and the blue wire from the barometric switch connects to the blue wire from the ICM to the computer and also doesn't come from inside the distrubutor. I've verified this agreement between the wiring diagram in the Haynes manual and the wires on my car. I have a photo of the blue wire to the computer with it's single white connector in the engine bay but cannot figure out how to post it with this text. I hope you can get it all sorted out. I think the two wires to the coil have different ends (connectors) to prevent them being connected to the wrong posts on the coil. Correcion: I think I may have somehow attached the photo after all. Yes!

[CorollaConnor]

Thanks fellas! That should clear it all up for me! I am intrigued by the escort carb thing though? Where can I find info? Getting rid of computer stuff sounds amazing. The more 28 y/o electronic parts I can delete the better! This will soon be my only daily