Please Help! No Tach Signal to Howell TBI

[thundley57]

I just completed my Howell TBI upgrade on my 83 CJ7 AMC 258 i6 / 4.2l ci with Duraspark ignition and Juice Pack dizzy cap/coil/plug wire upgrade. The problem is that apparently I have no tach signal coming from the negative side of the E-Core ignition coil to tell the electric fuel pump to pump while cranking the engine.

The ECM is definitely hooked up to a "hot during crank and run" wire and the pump runs for two seconds when first turning the key on but does not run during crank and the injectors do not activate.

After talking to Troy at Howell he said to disconnect the white tach wire from the coil and apply 12V to it while tapping to simulate a tach signal. This worked causing the pump and injectors to run so Troy told me that the problem was in my ignition system and offered no other good solutions!

Have any of you that have done this upgrade run into this problem? Is it possibly the E-Core coil? One thing I did during the installation was splice the white tach signal wire into the negative coil wire and soldered it in other words, I did not attach it directly to the negative coil connection at the coil. Could this be the problem?

Sure hoping one of you have the answer to this as I'm grasping at straws now and my Jeep is aching to get out of the driveway!

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Tom

 

[Torxhead]

Tough break! On my CJ I do run the e-core type coil along with soldering to the negative coil wire. I would suggest verifying that the coil is good if it is a new addition. I have never heard of a juice pac dizzy upgrade so I will have to look it up. I did the Team Rush upgrade and it really did help.

 

[thundley57]

Well I figured it out. When I installed the Juice Pack kit several months ago I crossed up the wires going to the E-Core coil installing the hot wire to the negative side and the connection from the Duraspark module to the positive side. The surprising thing is that it ran fine for several months until I installed the Howell TBI kit and obviously couldn't get the tack signal because of the way I had it hooked up. Anybody thinking of buying the Juice Pack kit from CRT Performance beware! The pigtail that came with the kit for the coil hookup had red wires hooked up to the negative side of the connector and a yellow wire to the positive side thus the reason I hooked it up backwards. The Juice Pack is the "Basic Upgrade" that the Junk Yard Genius refers to in the link below with the addition of an E-Core coil.

Here's some links in regards to the Juice Pack Torxhead. I'm sure you've heard of this upgrade, I think "Juice Pack" is CRT Performance's name for it.

TFI "Juicebox"

Genuine Junk Yard Genius.com Ignition Upgrade, Jeep 258 CID I-6

-Tom

 

[Torxhead]

The Team Rush Upgrade for the AMC 258 i6 / 4.2l is also well discussed in this forum. I built mine from a parts list and am quite surprised how long it took me to do it. Hopefully you have found what the problem was with yours and will report back about it. I have had my Howell kit for about 8 years now and am quite glad I did that.

 

[thundley57]

The Team Rush Upgrade for the AMC 258 i6 / 4.2l is also well discussed in this forum. I built mine from a parts list and am quite surprised how long it took me to do it. Hopefully you have found what the problem was with yours and will report back about it. I have had my Howell kit for about 8 years now and am quite glad I did that.

As mentioned in my last post, I did figure out the problem. I'll check out the Team Rush upgrade.

Tom