Need Help! Coil Relocation Gone Bad
07-21-2006, 09:26 PM
#1
TECH Enthusiast
Thread Starter
iTrader: (23)
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Lebanon, OH
Posts: 567
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Need Help! Coil Relocation Gone Bad I have recently been doing alot of work to accomadate my turbo setup. One of the things I have done is to relocate the coil packs. You can see by the pics that I put them on the shock towers. I extended the wiring harness to them being very careful and matching each pack and wire to each cylinder. The driver's side was very easy but the passenger side was more difficult. Nothing wanted to fit. None the less I believe the wires are fine and not damaged due to my pulling and shoving of the harness on that side (I could be wrong). Here's a couple pics of what I'm talking about.
Firing it up for the first time after the intake, elbow, TB, Fuel rail, and coil relocation, it only seems to run on 4 cylinders. The driver side plugs look perfect. The passenger side is front two extremely rich, back two wet (no spark).
One from the driver side. One from the front two, One from the back two
These are brand new plugs with 5 minutes idle time.
Drivers side (All look the same)
Passenger side front two
Passenger rear two
I can't test them until tomorrow but I understand the rear two being wet (no power to coils). What I don't get is why the front two are so rich?
Firing it up for the first time after the intake, elbow, TB, Fuel rail, and coil relocation, it only seems to run on 4 cylinders. The driver side plugs look perfect. The passenger side is front two extremely rich, back two wet (no spark).
One from the driver side. One from the front two, One from the back two
These are brand new plugs with 5 minutes idle time.
Drivers side (All look the same)
Passenger side front two
Passenger rear two
I can't test them until tomorrow but I understand the rear two being wet (no power to coils). What I don't get is why the front two are so rich?
07-21-2006, 10:05 PM
#2
Banned
iTrader: (92)
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 7,757
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Wow, bummer.. 
That's why my coil kits don't modify the factory wires (no cutting)
You're gonna have to strip all the tape/loom off the extentions and and source the ones going to the dead (wet) holes. If you were using butt-connectors I'd just cut them out and put new ones in.
On the fouled plugs that are getting spark, I can think of two things...
1) If you did new injectors maybe they're having an issue themselves.
2) (But more likely)- Perhaps you mixed up the wiring for a couple of cylinders so it's not firing at the correct time. Because the other two cylinders were dead you couldn't hear that two cylinders were mis-matched and not firing on the correct cycle.
That's why my coil kits don't modify the factory wires (no cutting)
You're gonna have to strip all the tape/loom off the extentions and and source the ones going to the dead (wet) holes. If you were using butt-connectors I'd just cut them out and put new ones in.
On the fouled plugs that are getting spark, I can think of two things...
1) If you did new injectors maybe they're having an issue themselves.
2) (But more likely)- Perhaps you mixed up the wiring for a couple of cylinders so it's not firing at the correct time. Because the other two cylinders were dead you couldn't hear that two cylinders were mis-matched and not firing on the correct cycle.
07-21-2006, 10:17 PM
#3
TECH Enthusiast
Thread Starter
iTrader: (23)
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Lebanon, OH
Posts: 567
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
FIREHAWK:
I like your relocation kit. I just want to put them on the shock towers. Already had the plug wires for that. I didn't use butt connectors they were soldered with heat shrink then electrical tape. All wires are definatley going to the correct coils. I think I may have damaged them when trying to route them under the intake. Just trying to make it clean looking. That's why I stated that the drivers side was easy and the passenger side was a bitch. I just can't figure out why two of them are so rich looking? The other two are easy. No spark, meaning wiring problem. The two rich ones have me stumped?
I like your relocation kit. I just want to put them on the shock towers. Already had the plug wires for that. I didn't use butt connectors they were soldered with heat shrink then electrical tape. All wires are definatley going to the correct coils. I think I may have damaged them when trying to route them under the intake. Just trying to make it clean looking. That's why I stated that the drivers side was easy and the passenger side was a bitch. I just can't figure out why two of them are so rich looking? The other two are easy. No spark, meaning wiring problem. The two rich ones have me stumped?
07-21-2006, 10:39 PM
#4
Banned
iTrader: (92)
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 7,757
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Soldering solves the connection issue, unless you yanked hard enough when getting the intake part of the project done.
The bad news: you already know it's not going to get fixed by itself. The only solution is to take off the intake, unwrap any wiring and look for the break(s).
On the part about the fouled plugs, I'm still thinking that you have two connections crossed.
When I first did a prototype on my car a year and a half ago, I had the spark wires from two cylinders on the wrong coils. I took the bricks off and luckily I saw (because I marked each connection with marker) that two plugs were indeed on the wrong cylinders. I was sure that I had them correctly hooked, but I was wrong.
The car didn't seem too bad out of timing, but it would lag if you tapped the throttle, and it would give an afterfire (fuel igniting in the headers) every 10 -15 seconds. I got the spark wires on the right coils and it's been flawless for all this time.
I think you should track down the mis-fire now(if possible), then take the intake off and find out about the dead holes. It would suck to take the intake off a 2nd time.
The bad news: you already know it's not going to get fixed by itself. The only solution is to take off the intake, unwrap any wiring and look for the break(s).
On the part about the fouled plugs, I'm still thinking that you have two connections crossed.
When I first did a prototype on my car a year and a half ago, I had the spark wires from two cylinders on the wrong coils. I took the bricks off and luckily I saw (because I marked each connection with marker) that two plugs were indeed on the wrong cylinders. I was sure that I had them correctly hooked, but I was wrong.
The car didn't seem too bad out of timing, but it would lag if you tapped the throttle, and it would give an afterfire (fuel igniting in the headers) every 10 -15 seconds. I got the spark wires on the right coils and it's been flawless for all this time.
I think you should track down the mis-fire now(if possible), then take the intake off and find out about the dead holes. It would suck to take the intake off a 2nd time.
07-22-2006, 11:01 PM
#6
TECH Enthusiast
Thread Starter
iTrader: (23)
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Lebanon, OH
Posts: 567
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Believe it or not it was very simple. I got to work and pulled up the wiring diagram of the coils on Mitchell on demand and found that GM decided to wire the passenger side coils in reverse from the drivers side. In other words the coils have 4 wires. One black, one brown, one pink. These are common to all coils. Each coil also has another signal wire being either red, green, blue or purple. When I did the coils I did one side at a time. By the time I did the passenger side I just match the colored wires on the coils with the drivers. So all the passenger side coils were wired wrong. All I had to do was swap the coil pack connectors around and she fired right up. 
