Uhmmm, the secondary winding should be the one with high resistance and the
primary should be much lower resistance than the secondary. I don't have a
manual with the specs handy, but the measurements you gave sound about right
if you meant the PRIMARY was 1.3 Ohms, and the SECONDARY was 13.3 K Ohms.

Maybe.

Whoa... slow down. One thing at a time. There are test procedures for those
components, but I don't think I could walk you through them via e-mail. I
can't type for that long at a time. <grin> Unless you have a good repair
manual and are pretty handy at electronic diagnostics,  I would have to
recomend letting a professional trouble shoot those items. Maybe Don has
some sugestions. He is good at coming up with some simple DIY tests. He
posts here pretty often so I'll let him chime in on this one if he can.

I doubt it.

I have heard of arc welding on a car causing damage to electronic
components, but I have never experienced it first hand.  I guess it is
possible, but I know it doesn't always happen. On the other hand, electronic
components have been know to fail unexpectedly and without any apparent
cause. Even if the muffler shop did cause the problem I doubt that there
would be any way to prove it.

Your measurements of the coil are close enough to specs (other than you have
the secondary mixed up with the primary) that I don't believe you have found
any evidence that the coil is bad. Of course, that doesn't mean it is good
either. Coils can pass resistance checks and still not function properly.

If the arc welding caused any problems it would more than likely be to a
module or electronic component rather than the coil.  About the best advise
I can offer is to have someone with experience on your model and the right
equipment run through the proper diagnostic routines for a no start problem.
You are likely to be replacing some expensive parts on a guess otherwise.

Good luck,

FWIW my brother had the same thing happen in his 94 323.  It died while
driving and had no spark.  The ECU threw a code which was something along
the lines of no spark signal.  After a little research online it seemed this
pointed to the cam position sensor, which is built into the distributor.  It
was his winter beater so after replacing the distributor with one from a
salvage yard it was good to go again.

Obviously your problem could be caused by any number of other things, but
hopefully this helps you in tracking it down.

Thank you to everyone who has responded.  I've heard from two sources
that it might be worth replacing the distributor.  I know a local
salvage yard has a newly acquired Protege about the same year.  On
Monday, I'll see how much they want for a used distributor.  Now, I
don't think it is the coil.  The only other part it could be is the
Igniter.  Neither Autozone or Checker can test it.  Hmm....

Yes, and I have a feeling it was.  Of course the muffler shop had the
good sense to disconect the negative terminal of  the battery, as is
the normal practice before welding on a car, right?

"Ignitor" is what many Japanese car makers call the ignition control
module.

www.autozone.com has repair information about some cars, but if yours
isn't listed, check a comparable year Ford Escort with 1.8L engine,
which has the same engine and fuel and ignition systems.

In the end, it was the distributor.  $195 for a new distributor from
Awto Bahagi in California.  The car started right up as soon as I
installed it.

jc