Hello, I’ve got an 01 ram van with the v6, 67k miles, well maintained, has never given me a lick of trouble until I tried to start it this morning and it just cranked. No hiccups, no cough, just nothing. I could hear the fuel pump come on and verified pressure by depressing the schrader valve and a strong stream shot out. I did not check with a gauge. I checked for spark at the distributor and at the plugs, and although it looked kinda orange and anemic it was there. At this point I thought maybe the injectors weren’t firing for some reason so I dumped a small cup of fresh fuel down the throttle body hoping it would at least try to pop off. Nothing, not even a hiccup. I verified the crank sensor and distributor were pulsing signal and they both checked out ok. I decided to swap in a different ignition coil, thinking maybe the weak looking spark was trying to tell me something. I only had an older round canister style coil from a tbi 5.9l engine so I fashioned some jumper wires and hooked everything up and it actually sputtered a bit, fired and ran for just a second and stalled. Thinking I had it licked, I pulled the coil wire to check the spark at the distributor to find I now had no spark, nothing! Switched back to the original coil, still nothing. I have 12v going to the coil during cranking but the ecm does not appear to be triggering the coil to fire anymore. I verified that the distributor and cps are still pulsing proper signal. And I confirmed continuity on the trigger wire from the coil to where it goes into the ecm. There are no codes present. Gauges all work, and from what I have read, no typical signs of ecm failure. I checked all grounds, connectors and unwrapped and traced associated wiring but everything looks clean and undamaged. Does Anyone have any ideas or a direction for me to head on this puzzle? Despite being almost 25 years old, This vehicle is the newest thing I’ve owned, I’m used to points and carburetors and I’m stumped!

 

Rent some noid lights from your local parts store, test the coil connector, and an injector connector while cranking. See what you get. Judging from what you have written here though, it appears that everything is working as it should, EXCEPT the PCM......

Edit: Might try pressing on the connectors at the PCM while cranking. See if it starts.

 

thanks, I will try the noid lights to confirm my findings, my buddy has a set. I tried wiggling all the associated connections while cranking, although hard to believe it’s a connection issue since it NEVER gave a hint of trouble before this. Also, I thought it strange it HAD spark but wouldn’t light, then it lit momentarily with a different coil, and now no spark… ??? My determination at this point was that it must be the pcm, wanted some more experienced eyes on this problem before I shell out $ on that gamble…

 

I have seen where a weak signal from the crank sensor can generate a weak spark.... It doesn't seem like it should work that way, but, it does..... If you buddy has an osciliscope, might be interesting to see what the wave forms from the cam and crank sensor look like. I fairly high zoot scanner should be able to do the same thing.

 

would be interesting to look at but I’m afraid it’s probably a moot point now because I have zero spark and I still see the 5v pulse at the cps. I’ll inquire and see if it’s possible regardless. Thanks again

 

Orange spark is a sign of weak spark, perhaps your second ignition coil wasn't any better than the first. Pull the distributor cap and inspect it and the rotor for cracks, wear, and carbon tracks.

 

Second coil is good, came off my running 90 b350 tbi engine, I never got the chance to check the condition of the spark with the second coil, after it fired briefly and stalled the van never had spark again. cap and rotor are clean and still look new. And even if they were in terrible shape, I can’t see that preventing it from running at all.

 

noid lights confirm what my nose (raw fuel odor after cranking) suspected, the injectors are firing. They also confirm my findings with the multi meter, the Coil is not being triggered by the pcm… I don’t have access to a scope, but I probed the wires on the cps and the distributor again and confirmed they are both pulsing 5v.

 

Try pressing on the PCM connectors while cranking. See if that changes anything.

 

tried that, pressed on it, wiggled all the connections, lightly tapped on the pcm, etc… no changes.