Well today I went out to look at my buddy's purple ej1. It stalled and he couldn't get it started. He was giving me a bunch of crap about it being a clogged fuel filter (at 120K miles mind you). On my way to him I picked up a new cap and rotor and told him to STFU and let me look at it. Turns out I was right, but it was a bit too late to do anything there. Here's what happened. The car and rotor were never changed in the last 50K miles. The retention bolt that holds the rotor had become loose and finally ejected from its place taking a good chunk of the rotor and the plastic cover that is over the coil. When I took the car off there was a crapload of debris falling out - not a good sign. Than I turned the motor over until the place where the bolt was supposed to be faced up...and of course the bolt was missing. We were puzzled about it for a few minutes, than I took the cover off and found the bolt inside. I installed the new rotor, put the bolt inside with a portion of locktite and installed the new cap....the car ran like crap, but it ran good enough for it to crawl to the mechanic's shop. My guess is that the bolt damaged teh coil somewhat and now the spark is not strong enough. May be it is something else as it was too dark to see anything. My point is: If you haven't done so in the last 10-15K miles - replace the damn thing and live trouble free...and make sure you torque that bolt in.

 

Preventative maintence is the key.

 

I wasn't aware that you had to service that part on a regular basis?

 

Ahh i will do it later

 

This seems similar to my problem " I cant get my car started please help". Only thing is the cap and rotor look fine and it is giving spark; blueish. I replaced plugs and wires but it has original cap and rotor though and it has about 112,000 miles. Could this be a reason the car is not starting? It feels like its just not catching! Thanks

 

dizzys eventually go on all cars unless their distributorless like the new k series engines.

 

Also the OBX iridum plugs decided to take a dump at the same time:-D I guess that was the "running like crap" part. Had to solder one wire inside the dizzy and all is cool.