[s-cars] Coilpacks

[Paul Gailus]

My read on this is that the spark plug failure was most likely
due to preignition / detonation from another fault in the
ignition system, and not the first failure that initiated the rest
of the problems.
Intermittent shorting to ground of the coil primary lead that
is connected to the PSO could be causing the problem. The PSO
itself is also a prime suspect (especially given its stellar history
on this list).
By the way, the melted coil could have been caused by a
sustained short to ground in the PSO output, or somewhere on
the wire from this output to the coil. It's very likely that these coils
are not rated for continuous current on the primary. I believe
another lister (Chad?) had a similar problem with a melted coil.

Paul

----- Original Message -----
From: Calvin & Diana Craig <calvinlc at earthlink.net>
To: <s-car-list at audifans.com>
Sent: Monday, October 21, 2002 10:31 PM
Subject: [s-cars] Coilpacks


> You guys aren't gonna believe this one.  The car starts missing badly so
my
> wife calls me, tells me the symptoms, and we decide she should just
continue
> to the mechanics a few miles away.  He pulls off the coil pack cover from
> the valve cover and one is literally melted...basically.  He pulls the
spark
> plug out and lo and behold the spark plug positive electrode has wiggled
> it's way loose and shorted out the ground electrode and the positive
output
> of the coil.  OK, coilpack replaced back on the road.
>
> A few miles down the road she sees smoke from the tailpipe, smells really
> bad, car still running like a top.  Calls mechanic, mechanic suggests
> unburned fuel in catalytics working it's way loose.  By the time she gets
> where she is going it clears up.  No problem at all...running great.  She
> gets back to her next place (about 70 miles after repair now) and the car
is
> shut off.  When she restarts it it is now missing really badly again.
> Luckily only about 3 miles from mechanics place.
>
> I just got off the phone with him, great guy to be working on our car at
> 9:00 pm so we can have it done by tomorrow when I leave town.  At any rate
> he believes that some of the wires may have gotten pinched and just about
> all of the wires going into the coilpacks are missing a lot of their
> insulation (it's flaking off).  Since they have 110k miles in a pretty
> hostile environment I don't doubt this at all.
>
> First of all, does all this sound like the right track to you guys.
Second
> of all, where is the cheapest place to get coilpacks....so far the
cheapest
> I have found them is $119.
>
> Thanks for any help!
>
> --Calvin
>
>
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