1990 protege' not getting spark

I have been up and down this car trying to find why it's not getting spark. The coil tests out fine, but there is no spark when you arc it to ground. Also I have a problem with my instrumentation and parking lights coming on when I press on the brake pedal. Any thoughts?

does your check engine light come on when you turn the key to "on"???

I found out what the problem was but now I can't get it to idle correctly without it backfiring all the time. Tried plugs, timing, nothing seems to work.

so what was the problem with it???

The ignition module in the distributor was bad. The guy that resurfaced the head and pressure washed it didn't take the distributor out first.

well by chance do you remember if the CE light was coming on when in "on" when it wouldn't start??


oh and as far as it not running it right, double check the dist isn't off 180 degrees... i've done that a few times on v-8s at least it will run, but like caca...

No it wasn't. Not until all the panel lights were on when it died. It's running rough now and the timing was just realligned. It was getting so hot the catalytic converter was getting cherry in about a min. Now I don't know what is going on.

pull the plugs and check what color/condition they are...

they are brand new bosch platinums I just bought. I replaced them because the #4 was not firing at all and the number one was mainly black. It looked like 2 and 3 were firing ok.