[s-cars] 1.8T coil woes

[ron kirkham]

So I have been running the Apikol 1.8T coil conversion on my '93 S4 for
several years now, probably about 75-80k mi. (I'd need to check for sure) I
have replaced all coils at least twice and some three times since
installation.  Last week I'm running some errands and did a very short 2nd
gear full throttle pull and got the all-too familiar drop of a cylinder
only worse.  I Limp home about 5mi. and park and leave the engine running.
Very bad idle and very stinky exhaust.  Turns out that I somehow dropped 3
coils at the same time!  Fortunately, I actually had three replacement
coils on the shelf and got her running smoothly again.  I should mention
that all coils were, and are now the "R" suffix coils.

I don't think I want to re-order more 1.8T coils to have on the shelf for
the next failure which is sure to be soon.  I'm tired of it.  I am
considering going back to the old set-up of PSO's and coils as I have all
those parts on hand including one or two stock coils NIB. And one NIB PSO.
Or, I may make the leap to the LS2 set-up from EFI Express or build my
own using these known good coils.  Or, are there other options to look at?
Money is a consideration but I have spent a boat-load of cash on 1.8t coils
over the last several years.

For those of you running the LS2 coils, have there been coil failures?  If
so, how frequently?

I don't much like the idea of going back to the stock set-up as diagnosis
of failures between coils or PSO's is more difficult and replacement of
coils is troublesome also.

The S4 will have 250k mi. on it sometime this month provided I can keep it
running!

Thoughts?

Ron
'93 S4 with too many coils gone bad
'95.5 S6A still fully stock ignition and running fine thanks.