gsjones

I recently performed a head swap on my 1.8 swapped NA6 and now I'm getting the always fun "crank, but no start." The engine turns normally and I am getting fuel. It would appear I am not getting any spark and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for where to begin with the diagnosis. I have the Enthusiast's Manual and I'm aware this can be a pretty large, pretty annoying number of things. I'm just wondering if there's a notorious culprit people have come across following a head swap. This was my first time doing this, so it's possible I missed a step or left something unplugged, but I've looked over the engine bay countless times with no luck. I swapped because I had a blown head gasket and my old head was pretty ugly. Found a <100k mileage head for cheap and slapped it on with the Flyin' Miata head gasket repair kit. Just to answer the inevitable, unhelpful "well why'd you swap in the first place?".

Anyway, hopefully I can narrow this down soon. Any advice would be much appreciated.

gooflophaze

Ground strap that's over by the master cylinder is attached? How do you know it's getting fuel, wet plugs?

Colipto

I had this issue when i rebuilt I checked timing and it was wrong

check the lobes on your cams and crankshaft and make sure the timing belt install is correct

gsjones

I think I'm having an ECU issue. My check engine light never comes on. I didn't think about it before. So the car was running, blew its head gasket, I swapped on a new head, and now it won't start. When the key is turned to "on," I get no check engine light. I know the bulb is good because I had an O2 sensor go bad a couple days before the head gasket failure and the CEL was on. Also, the cooling fans must be unplugged or they constantly stay on, even when I remove the key and turn the car completely off. Could all of these things be related? I've looked at my fuses and they seem alright, as far as I can tell. Plus, the car started up just fine prior to the head swap and didn't have the cooling fan issue. I think there has to be some ground or something that isn't plugged in, causing things to go haywire. My a/c and all available "driver aids" have been removed, so I've already got some plugs that aren't plugged into things. This makes it hard to tell what goes where. I've looked all around the engine bay trying to find anything that any of these plugs could potentially plug into, but every "outlet" seems to have a "plug." Anyone have any ideas?

gsjones

I should also state that I checked timing and it is good. I also tried some starter fluid and had no luck.

sparkybean

Youve not connected the ecu ground to the engine?