From what I read on the ignition capacitor or RF suppressors in general, it stops electrical "noise" from interfering with electronic components. I figure it wasn't doing it's job well for some reason and was causing intermittent interference with ECM. My guess is it was defective and possibly overheating???

 

Capacitors are a series of plates separated by a dielectric material. -)|- They can "pass" an AC current, but block DC current. Depending on value they can filter a power supply and provide extra "umph" to sub amps, or a small one can "shunt" electrical noise to ground, acting as a filter. They have a break down voltage rating, and can fail "shorted", connecting the circuit to ground usually, or they can fail "open" and simply stop working. They can even be used as a series "impedence" to drop voltage to a small motor, most of us have one inside our refrigerators where they allow the defrost timer motor to work from 120 volts.

On the spark circuit they are mainly for noise suppression. If open, or cold solder joint, it would allow noise.

 

Thanks Savannah Buzz, I'm a little better informed and a little dizzy at the same time... So do you think we nailed the problem?

 

The failure in this case isn't due to interference, but it going open circuit. You have power and ground into the unit, and power out to the coils, inside you lose contact between power in and power out. It can actually be 'fixed' but just shorting those two wires together, but you would then be introducing rf interference into all the other wirey stuff around it.

Glad you got it taken care of, and yes the part has been redesigned. I recommend replacing it as part of a tune up, it's cheap, and good assurance if the old design is still fitted. It's not that common of a failure, however changing the load of the coils by changing the spark plugs, can cause it to fail when it was working fine before, and with it being just a few dollars more then a plug itself, it's usually not a big deal.

 

Glad it sounds like you fixed the issue.

Where is this capacitor installed, or better yet, what are the steps to replace it?

 

Capacitor is circled in green in the picture. Replacement is a single 8mm bolt, and one 3 wire connector. The picture shows the updated style capacitor, which is more of a one piece design, and has a curved front, the old design is a rectangle with a separate bracket attached to it.

 

Well, all was going excellent for 350 miles of use until I traveled on the Highway. I drove about 45 miles for a new set of tires, all was good. Got off the Expressway and drove for another 2 miles or so and hit a very minor pot hole and she died on me. On the flip trip home Expressway travel was excellent, exited to the streets, went over a nice sized hump in the road VERRRRRRY SLOWWWLY and she died. Same scenario as before total cut off of power, tach showing 1500 rpm (engine still running? Can't tell), no throttle response other than a tick up on the tach of 100 rpm, I roll to a stop wait 2 min and restart. Once again no chimes when I turn the key to position 2 (Don't know if that's important). Took her to the parts shop to have the codes read and there were none. The only difference this time is there was no warning in the way of performance to let me know I'm getting close to failure. One other thing... The steering is occasionaly stiff and hard to turn sometimes to the point I can't palm the wheel into a turn. When it gets like that the wheel doesn't return to center on it's own I have to turn it back to center. This only happens occasionally, I'll get to my destination shut her down and when I start her up again the steering will be fine. Note, I do need Right side Inner Tie Rod and End (next weeks project).

 

Also, in regards to the steering, I did a "Hard Reset" that I read on another thread. worked for a short while.

 

If the tie rod end doesn't fix the steering, try the U-Joint on the end of the Intermediate shaft (part of the steering column)

 

Am suprise your 3 still off i have been following your thread as mine do off when the fuel is low ad show reduce engine performance when throttle to 80 here no part talk less of good tech i know your solution will solve mine