This car has come to us with a suspected starter motor fault, but its nothing to do with the starter, it appears to be a timing issue. This car has a coil pack but the symtoms are the same as produced by damp inside a distributor cap. When cranking, it appears that the timing is too far advanced or firing like the plug leads are fitted incorrectly and kicks back against the starter.

Its a 1.6 automatic with single point injection and if you disconnect the coil, it cranks over perfectly. I've scoped ignition primary and secondary patterns, crank sensor output looks fine, plugs and leads have been checked.

I'm stuck now.