Anyone ever had a Ignition Coil failure under WOT?

[Dasfinc]

Ignition coil failures are not super uncommon on fords I know, and I kinda suspect that may be what I experienced the other day...

My truck has a No-Start condition at the moment after Friday night (from my build thread):

"Cruised around on new tune for 15 min, no problems. Pulled from 20mph onto 355, had a pop from the exhaust on the shift to 3rd, pulled to 100 in 3rd, no problems. Did it from a standstill and it popped twice on the 2/3 shift and broke up. I let off, idle was loping doing 40mph, no smoke or fluid dumped. Pulled over immediately and stalled out.

Truck turns over smooth, but doesnt start. So I fear I chunked something internally or it's something easy like a dead ECU or pump... (I've killed one ECU already...)"

The truck has shifted with a bit of a 'pop' randomly in the past, and my truck has been especially bad at reliably shifting at the correct points (sometimes would shift at 5500, sometimes 5200, sometimes 5800).

I checked the ECU and all my fuses/relays and everything checks out. My pump primes and is running etc, I can smell a whiff of fuel after cranking it for a while so it seems like its getting fuel but not starting.

I have NOT pulled a sparkplug out and tried cranking it to see if there is a spark, but I have pulled off my coils and tested them both.

Primary resistance on both is 1.0, secondary is 13.6-13.7K

I see a brand new OEM coil is supposed to be .3-.9 on the primary, 11.5-17.5K on the secondary.

I've replaced coils in the past that passed spec before as well, but I'd rather not spend $120-130 in MSD coils unless I'm fairly confident the ones I have are dead, or need to be upgraded anyways....

is being 1.0 too 'high', or high enough to cause a no-start on the primary side? I'd read that a bad/failing coil could have caused my weird shifting habits as well.

Click to read more...

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

coils tend to fail under high load where the firing kV is the highest....makes it easy to find the path of least resistance through the epoxy potting compound/molded body.

start testing, get an inline spark tester and swap it around, could be an ignition cable too so ohm them out

 

[Dasfinc]

Whats an Inline spark tester?

On a side note, the coils were off of my Explorer parts truck and probably have 195K+ On them......

 

[LSx S10]

 

[Dasfinc]

Where in the fuck does that go? Lol

 

[LSx S10]

the black part plugs onto your spark plug, and the metal side you connect your spark plug wire.

 

[10sec]

Checking shit out for yourself > 10,000 threads asking what "could" have gone wrong.

Dude, seriously, fuel, spark, compression is what a motor needs to run. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to diagnose, keyboard diagnosing doesn't work. Get off your ass and go figure it out.

 

[Bob Kazamakis]

mike with the cold hard truth

 

[Runtz52]

ignition coil went out on my civic after doing my timing belt, it was just a tiny bit out of spec like ur saying, it was sposed to 1.0 and it was .9, replaced ignition coil and bam started right up

 

[C.Evans]

Checking shit out for yourself > 10,000 threads asking what "could" have gone wrong.

Dude, seriously, fuel, spark, compression is what a motor needs to run. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to diagnose, keyboard diagnosing doesn't work. Get off your ass and go figure it out.

 

[AjL227]

Checking shit out for yourself > 10,000 threads asking what "could" have gone wrong.

Dude, seriously, fuel, spark, compression is what a motor needs to run. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to diagnose, keyboard diagnosing doesn't work. Get off your ass and go figure it out.

But its so much more fun to stay by the keyboard and shoot the breeze.

 

[Tuner World]

How are your A/F ratios?

 

[Dasfinc]

Checking shit out for yourself > 10,000 threads asking what "could" have gone wrong.

Dude, seriously, fuel, spark, compression is what a motor needs to run. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to diagnose, keyboard diagnosing doesn't work. Get off your ass and go figure it out.

I live in an Apartment Townhome. Working on my truck in the parking lot is frowned upon. I did all my recent work 60+ Miles away in Mazon IL over a weekend and drove it home. I can't be out front doing Compression tests...

I spent 5 minutes with the hood up, switched out my ECU, Checked all my relays and fuel pressure. That all looked good, so I started the thread looking for guidance in regards to "How far out of spec can a coil be to cause a no-start" and "How common is it for them to fail under hard load" essentially. Both of those questions have yielded some results from Runtz and James.

I can replace a coil in 30 seconds on my truck, its going to take me an hour to do compression tests on all the cylinders and I really rather not risk getting fined or kicked out over testing something that will show if I need to move the truck again. I'm looking for common things that may cause these circumstances after what I described happened.

I don't mean to be a dick/short, but I am just looking for input on my questions specifically, telling me to "Go out and work on it" doesn't help when I can't DO that.

 

[Dasfinc]

How are your A/F ratios?

the Wideband was showing 12.3-12.5 under WOT. Was showing 10's when it was stumbling before I pulled over.

 

[Mook]

That's too lean for my tastes.

 

[Tuner World]

the Wideband was showing 12.3-12.5 under WOT. Was showing 10's when it was stumbling before I pulled over.

Was it showing 10's while WOT? My BOV isn't recirculated and I know everytime I hit boost and let off the gas it gets real rich (around 10's and 11's) and stumbles and tries to die out. This is normal in my cause until I get recir'd but maybe you got a vacuum/boost leak somewhere?

Don't know how your car is setup but I know when this situation happens to people with boosted cars, it's usually something simple like a I/C pipe that blew off or a vacuum line that got disconnected and made their car run like shit/not start

 

[Dasfinc]

Was it showing 10's while WOT? My BOV isn't recirculated and I know everytime I hit boost and let off the gas it gets real rich (around 10's and 11's) and stumbles and tries to die out. This is normal in my cause until I get recir'd but maybe you got a vacuum/boost leak somewhere?

Don't know how your car is setup but I know when this situation happens to people with boosted cars, it's usually something simple like a I/C pipe that blew off or a vacuum line that got disconnected and made their car run like shit/not start

Read my post , 12.3 under WOT, 10 while I was off throttle afterwards before it stalled out.

My truck has always been pissy about me getting on/off/on throttle (like 'stabbing' the gas and letting off, and stabbing it again.)

Since I have a roots blower there are VERY few vac lines honestly, and nothing looked toast/popped off. I'll double check that though.

That's too lean for my tastes.

Truck had 11.8 on the Dyno with my wideband showing 12.2-12.3 prior to all the work, and I have a slight exhaust leak still so I suspect it's still at 11.8-12.1

 

[jason05gt]

I don't mean to be a dick/short, but I am just looking for input on my questions specifically, telling me to "Go out and work on it" doesn't help when I can't DO that.

He answered your question. You can ask all the questions in the world, but the answer is to go out there and diagnose the problem. It could be fifty different things and until you actually troubleshoot the issue, it's all a guess. Is the car throwing any codes? If so, I'd start there and troubleshoot that. Otherwise I'd look over the MAF, pull the plugs and read them, check to make sure you don't have a vac leaks, and finally run a compression test.

 

[Dasfinc]

Just hooked my timing gun up to the truck, no spark... DOUBLE CHECKED to make sure my gun was working correctly on the explorer. So either both coil packs are dead or the BRAND NEW timing chain hoped/failed/otherwise (As the CPS is cam driven which tells the ECU when to spark) There is NO noise from the front of the engine that would signify a chain failure, so I'm ordering a pair of MSD coils and praying.

 

[Boostie]

Who installed the timing chain?

 

[Runtz52]

Just hooked my timing gun up to the truck, no spark... DOUBLE CHECKED to make sure my gun was working correctly on the explorer. So either both coil packs are dead or the BRAND NEW timing chain hoped/failed/otherwise (As the CPS is cam driven which tells the ECU when to spark) There is NO noise from the front of the engine that would signify a chain failure, so I'm ordering a pair of MSD coils and praying.

hopefully its just the coils, when my car stalled out after i did the timing belt i was concerned, it started right up just fine and dandy ran for a few min i reved it and it sputtered and died then wouldnt restart, checked and no spark replaced coil and it was all good, if it isnt ur coils or ur cps id be really surprised especially with the mileage they have

 

[Dasfinc]

hopefully its just the coils, when my car stalled out after i did the timing belt i was concerned, it started right up just fine and dandy ran for a few min i reved it and it sputtered and died then wouldnt restart, checked and no spark replaced coil and it was all good, if it isnt ur coils or ur cps id be really surprised especially with the mileage they have

CPS is Sub 10K miles, Cam/timing set is sub 200 miles...

With it reading the 1.0, and all the symptoms leading up to the failure, and the fact that the coil packs have 200K+ Miles on them and the timing light showing no spark, I'm like 90% Confident that HAS to be the issue... if its not, I really will be at a loss. On a brighter note, who doesn't like putting more performance goodies on their build to FIX an OEM failure?

Who installed the timing chain?

ASE Master tech buddy of mine out in Mazon. I watched/assisted, the gear/sprockets are 'keyed' so you can't screw up the installation, I watched him torque everything etc. Its an OHV motor, so there are no tensioners etc.

 

[Runtz52]

CPS is Sub 10K miles, Cam/timing set is sub 200 miles...

With it reading the 1.0, and all the symptoms leading up to the failure, and the fact that the coil packs have 200K+ Miles on them and the timing light showing no spark, I'm like 90% Confident that HAS to be the issue... if its not, I really will be at a loss. On a brighter note, who doesn't like putting more performance goodies on their build to FIX an OEM failure?

thats my excuse for buying shit for my car, why replace when u can upgrade, i think thats why im 2k into the civic

 

[Dasfinc]

Welp, new coils didn't fix the issue, still no spark, so that leaves wiring or ECM/Fuse/Relays..... I have already tried a known good ECU, so Wiring, or Fuse/Relay... I already tried swapping ECM relays with another, but I know that doesn't mean 100% its not a relay/fuse issue... so FML.

 

[C.Evans]

Does that thing have a cam or crank positon sensor?