I have a 97 2.3 L xlt Ranger with 180 K. I am trying to determine wether the base ignition timing is properly set at 10 deg. BTDC (I know not adjustable) or not and I know that the SPOUT (SPark OUTput) connector must be disconnected first, but where is the bugger????!!!!!. I have the service manuals and they do not say. There is not even a circuit diagram that shows the thing, at least that I can find!

I believe that it may be connected to pin 50 on the PCM which should be a white/black stripe wire, but have been unable to trace it and don't want to open up the wire harness at various places to do this. Don't even know if this is correct, anyway. Got the info. from a lame electrical diagram which is not necessarily a diagram for my truck, but may just be a "typical" or generic electrical diagram to show general operation.

Anyway, would be very appreciative if anyone here could help me. Haven't been able to find anything specific to my vehicle on the internet only that on 94 is hidden behind the battery and has pink wires???!!! Just can't believe that I can't find this thing!

Thanks, in advance .

George

 

I have a 94 and it does have pink wires. Mine isn't behind the battery though. It is about midway in the engine compatment on the drivers side. Behind the electrical distribution box by the diagnostic port. It has 2 pink wires. 1 going to the PCM and the other going to the EDIS module. The connector between the wires is grey. I believe it is in the same spot for the 97's. Good luck finding it. Is is there somewhere.

 

Thanks Andywk,

I now think that my truck doesn't even have a SPOUT connector. I looked carefully at the PCM connector pin diagram in my manual (I have the CD version for all 1997 Ford Trucks) and there are only 4 pins that have anything to do with ignition and they are labeled: ignition coil #1, #2, #3, and #4.

Also, I copied these two things from the manual:

1) Integrated Electronic Ignition System

The Integrated Electronic Ignition (EI) system consists of a Crankshaft Position (CKP) Sensor, coil pack(s), connecting wiring, and PCM.

2) NOTE:

Electronic Ignition engine timing is entirely controlled by the PCM. Electronic Ignition engine timing is NOT adjustable. Do not attempt to check base timing. You will receive false readings.

So I guess there is no SPOUT connector with an integrated electronic ignition system. It's all within the PCM. Let me know, anyone if this is wrong. Thanks.

George

 

I think you may be right. I looked into some diagrams for 95 on up for the 2.3 and I do not see a spout circuit listed. Its just like you said with 4 pins coming from the PCM. 2 to the primary coil and 2 to the secondary. The other side comes from the crank shaft positioning sensor. Thats all I see.

Were you having some trouble with the truck or just intersted in the timing?

 

When the truck was still under warranty, I brought it to Ford because it was pinging pretty badly and I didn't want to put premium in it - after all Ford says it's designed to run on 87 octane. The tech told me that he retarded the timing all the way to it's lower limit (I think he also said that he did it by flashing the computer). After this, it never did ping again and to this day it never has, but there was a noticeable decrease in power and MPG. I just recently got the complete manual on CD. Before this, I had everything but the powertrain diagnostics and the circuit/vacuum diagrams. I discovered that there is something called an "octane adjust shorting bar" which is an input to the PCM which, when removed, retards the timing about 3 deg.. Sure enough, when I checked for it I found it was removed on my truck. With the price of gas what it is now, and the fact that I'm on a kick to increase the power of this truck, I'd like to restore it to the previous timing to see what happens. So this got me interested in the timing in general. Mine reads 9 deg BTDC at idle right now.

The big question is how did the tech keep a trouble code from being generated when he removed the shorting bar? It should have generated a P1390 code. So.....maybe he reprogrammed the computer somehow to keep the code from being generated. I'll find out what happens when I reconnect it as soon as I get the shorting bar from Ford (on order now). I'm afraid to just jump it with a wire because it may be that the shorting bar is supposed to have a resistor in it. Maybe when I reconnect it, I'll get some kind of trouble code and have to take it to the dealer. Maybe it'll ping so badly I won't want to keep it that way. But I kinda think that being that it was under warranty, they just took the easy way out to fix the pinging. The truck didn't do it when it was new, so maybe it just needs to have the carbon cleaned from the valves and pistons. Anyway, I'll see what happens. Thanks.

George