Hi everyone. New member. I am a pretty experience mechanic and am having trouble with my beloved 2002 Saturn SL2, 1.9 DOHC. My wife and I were driving my car on a hot day and it started missing badly. Check engine light on and felt like it was only hitting on 2 cylinders. Limped it home. Checked it out and found one of the could was not firing. Check engine light PO1341 and PO1342 Also standard misfire codes. New plugs, wires before the problem started. Now the car won t start at all. No fire at the coils. The strange thing is I have injection pulse and am getting fuel. Tested with a test light and the connector flashes, I can also smell fuel. So that kind.of rules out the dreaded crank sensor? Anyhow checked the crank sensor and it passed the ohms test. Also I spun the motor and checked the a/c voltage on the crank sensor. It fell in the limits as good. New ects sensor also. Checked grounds, good. Pulled the connector at the ICM it has voltage and ground. Ohm tested the coil towers, tested good. Pulled one coil, it has 12 volts at one pin. I can't figure out how to test for coil trigger! This is stumping me. I am down to ICM, ECM or wiring to the COM from the ECM. Can someone help me with this? My wife wants me to get rid of the car but I don't want to. It's a great car. I have 305k on it and I want to see how many miles it will go. I have trusted this car to take me all over the West coast. Any help is much appreciated! Thanks, Nick

 

Derf is the S series expert, he will be by soon enough. You didn’t loose a chain did you?

 

That's a good point. I don't think so cause it ran so good till it started chugging and.light came on. As I was driving it would all the sudden take off and run great for about 5 or 6 miles and then start chugging again. I would guess that even if I lost a chain I would still have spark cause the crank sensor would still be sensing off the crank? The motor also turns over normally just no spark. You bring up a good point though that I should check. Thanks!

 

Thank you also for responding. I have been reading all of derfs responses to s series no start. I have had this car for soooooo long and love it. I have repaired lots of weird things on this car and maybe I can help out with some of other folks trouble with their s series. Nick

 

I would do a compression check. Then I would check fuel pressure. Then I would consider my wife’s input. LOL

 

Where did you get the plugs and wires? If at Autozone, you bought junk. Also, what brand plugs did you put in? That MIGHT have something to do with it. I always stay with OEM plugs. Since you say it started doing this AFTER the plugs and wires being changed, I'd put the old stuff back in (after cleaning the plugs and Ohm testing the wires) and see how it runs. Did you sand the coil towers slightly just to remove any corrosion as a precautionary measure? I always clean the coil connections any time I've changed wires on a vehicle. I'm NOT a mechanic like you, but have worked on my own cars for over 50 years. How many miles do you have on it? Maybe check the cat con. I know that won't cause a misfire, but you ARE dealing with a Saturn. LOL

 

Thank you. And yes I agree with these things needing done. I will do it today. I am stumped on no spark. If I can at.least get it running then I can start repairing everything else. Any ideas there? If have been reading derfs posts. Mine is a little starnge, they all are!
Lol! I will keep the car no matter what, it's too nice a car. I know wives don't like them but that's ok. I only need to please me! Lol!

 

Also it has 303k

 

Resistance tests are only valid when it is a failure. A meter puts near zero load on the circuit. You need to load test to be sure your tests are good.

 

In guess that's what I am trying to figure out. A way to test the ICM before ordering one. I know in can go to AutoZone, but as per others on this website they have said to only go with a\c delco for A module.