Vg30e swap with no spark

[Pathy4life]

I recently blew my stock motor playing in the sand for too long and found a 90k mile junkyard motor still in its original pathy that had been rolled, the yard mechanic pulled the motor for me and I swapped it in, everything seemed to bolt up fine except I’m not getting any spark, I’ve checked voltage through to my distributor cap and it’s showing 9 volts coming through the contact on the inside of the cap, plugs and wires are all fairly new so it doesn’t make sense why it won’t spark, when I bought the motor the mechanic started it up still in the car and it ran great, any help is much appreciated!

[Slartibartfast]

The coil wire isn't a power feed. The computer sends a pulse to the power transistor, which sends a more powerful pulse to the coil, which sends a high voltage pulse to the cap. It arcs through the cap to whichever contact the cap is pointing at.

 

If you suspect the cap is involved, check for spark from the coil wire to ground. If you don't have spark there, check the wiring/plugs on the transistor and coil. I would also check the wiring to the distributor--the sensor inside is how the computer knows the engine's position.

[Pathy4life]

The wire I have plugged into the coil is a black with white stripe and a blue with grey dots/lines, is that the wrong plug, there is another 2 prong connector that I figured went to the evap system nearby, I’ve tried cranking with both and wouldn’t get spark either way 

[Pathy4life]

When I check the voltage from said wire (black/white stripe and blue) it’s showing 12v and when I check voltage coming through the coil wire it’s showing 9.5v

[Pathy4life]

So I’ve finally checked my codes and I have a 34 for the knock sensor which after pulling my intake back off I realized I hadn’t swapped it from the old motor so I installed a new one and checked my codes and it’s a 55(all clear) added some grounds around the back and drivers side of the motor and even still when I crank I have no spark, occasionally if I crank it for 30+ seconds I’ll hear it make some sort of noise, not sure if one of my cylinders is actually igniting or if it’s just the compression making noise as it exits

[Slartibartfast]

I'm curious about this mystery plug you've got. I had a look at the ignition wiring in mine. Black/white and blue to the coil is correct. Behind that (towards the firewall) should be a three-wire plug going to the transistor (labelled PRW-2 if it's original). Directly below the coil, I've got what looks like a small four-wire plug with a cap on it, which I believe is the resistor and condenser. (Mine is zip tied to the harness, but I think it was originally taped in place.) I am not seeing another two-wire connector in that area with the same style of plug. What color are the wires on this mystery plug?

 

The evap system's on the opposite side of the engine, and it has no electrical components, so it's not for that.

 

Did you take the distributor out when you had the engine apart? If it didn't go back in the correct orientation, you may have spark, but the timing's so far out that it can't do anything with it.

[Pathy4life]

The extra two pin connector on my old wiring harness is capped so I do have the correct plug going to my coil, when I replaced the knock sensor recently I believe I plugged it into the wrong black clipped plug and yes I replaced my crankshaft position sensor after the motor was in and made sure to turn the motor to tdc and mark where my rotor was pointing before pulling it

[Pathy4life]

Also my MAF sensor seems to be slightly burned and one of the diodes is close to breaking point, will probably replace while I’m at it but first I get to pull the intake back off and find the correct plug for my knock sensor, might figure out how to relocate it like Slarti. Any tips for doing so are greatly appreciated