I lost cyl 3 on startup. The car was fine when parked two hours before. I replaced the coils, but found out after trying to restart the car that the plug wire for #3 had zero conductivity. So replaced plugs and wires and still no spark on #3. Did I kill the new coil when starting the car with bad plug wires or am I looking for another reason that #3 has no spark? I am using my timing light to check for spark and the others are firing ok. Please give any advice, I don't want to tow it to our local Stealership. THX!

 

I'm assuming from the above you checked resistance on the old and the new #3 plug wire and found open circuit on the old wire
(> 10M ohms or whatever your meter reads as open), and a normal resistance with the new wire (I believe several K ohms for
oem wires, sometimes less for aftermarket ones - check it against the @1,2,or4 wire for comparison).
Then, I might suspect the new coil, the plug-wire to plug connection, the plug, or something stranger like the crankshaft or camshaft position sensor
not sending a signal when it's time for the #3 piston to come up in firing range.

 

I am wondering what would cause the failure on startup that could burn the plug wire out? Also could the cam sensor possbly only fail on one cylinder? Seam like it could, but not likely.

 

1) I can't think of anything that would do that.
2) Yes sounds very unlikely, crank sensor or ecm almost as unlikely to do this.

 

Broken valve spring!