Originally Posted by rtstimson

Thanks to those who provided suggestions. Here's a follow up. Last Friday my car wouldn't start. It would turn over but wasn't firing. I thought it was the timing belt, which was within a few 1000 miles of needing replacement. But the timing belt was okay. The ignition coil was bad. The secondary resistance was less than 10K. I replaced the coil and timing belt. I also replaced the distibutor cap and rotor. The rotor was way over due for replacement because I couldn't get the damn screw out. But since the car was dead I didn't care if I trashed the rotor to get it off. After I did all that, the car started and the valve ping I mentioned in my original post went away. So it seems the pinging was due to a failing coil or possibly the excessive wear on the rotor. By the way I got an Autozone Duralast coil. I was concerned because the spec for the primary resistance of the Duralast coil is 1.0, whereas the OEM spec is between .6 and .8 (I think). But it seems to work okay.