coil pack death
- Thread starter madseacow
- Start date
Well, is the companion cylinder also dead? You can't check secondary resistance in these packs without special gear so all you can do is check the primary or swap a pack and see it the problem follows it. That said if you ran open circuited on the secondary it could've easily shorted. It's why I shake my head every time I see someone say to pull a plug wire when testing something: http://tinyurl.com/2xsj7o
Then the odds are the pack is good. The same secondary winding handles both cylinders. Everything is in series (for lack of a better term) even though the head doesn't actually provide the return path.
I said the odds are it's still working. Maybe the odds have been beat. I can see half the coil shorting for example and the only way you could tell is to measure the companion's firing KV. Since you don't have the right gear and appear to be only eyeballing it there's no way to tell how good the spark is. My point was before you rush out and buy a new pack swap it with another and see what happens. Never just throw parts at the car willy-nilly. We have monkeys for those kinds of tasks 
yay for jetjock. the persistence pays off, however painful it was... lol
I did NOT know that would happen. I always assumed that if one plug wire wasn't getting voltage, that particular coil was dead.
but, we all know what happens when we assume.
I was going to suggest swapping in a plug wire to rule out a bad wire, although swapping coils would do the same thing.
I did NOT know that would happen. I always assumed that if one plug wire wasn't getting voltage, that particular coil was dead.
but, we all know what happens when we assume.
I was going to suggest swapping in a plug wire to rule out a bad wire, although swapping coils would do the same thing.
Well, there are only a limited number of failure modes. It's just a coil of wire after all. If it opened both plugs would be dead but since shorting reduces the number of turns one or both could still fire but the spark would be weaker or nonexistent on one side. Depends where the short occurred and how many windings it compromised.
Still, DLI waste spark is not always intuitive. For example each plug pair fires with opposite polarity. It's one reason platinum plugs were speced. More interesting is the head doesn't supply a return path for the current. If you put a plug in one head and it's companion plug in another head, with no other connection between the two engines, each plug would still fire. Why that happens is something I'll leave others to figure out
Still, DLI waste spark is not always intuitive. For example each plug pair fires with opposite polarity. It's one reason platinum plugs were speced. More interesting is the head doesn't supply a return path for the current. If you put a plug in one head and it's companion plug in another head, with no other connection between the two engines, each plug would still fire. Why that happens is something I'll leave others to figure out