OK, I am looking for an expert advice on coil packs.

As I have been posting elsewhere we have been doing dynio tuning and over-riding the ECU outputs with our own from a fuel computer.

Tonight we put on our ignition controller and started testing.

All was going well, we were slowly dialing up timing and doing runs, and we were steadily gaining. We have tapped the output on the antiknock to monitor that.

We were up about 4 degrees and gained an extra 9HP on the dyno, when all of a sudden she shut down cold.

Hmm, upon examination i am going to be buying a new set of coil packs (ignition coil units) Three out of 4 are melted rather badly.

Now the question:
How the heck do you melt down a coil pack??

Wow!... You are really making some headway on the controller problem! Wish I had something to contribute.....

Do the coils have a 'ballast resistor' built in? On the old ignition coils, you could boil them if you bypassed the resistor, they are rated to start cars with heavy starter draw current, and the resistor is bypassed in the 'start' key position.....
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doc

They have 3 connections:
12V positive
12V ground
signal in

When they are running they charge up and the current on the signal line is on they store energy.
When you remove the signal the field collapeses and they discharge.

Modern cars like this use a separate coil for each plug, and have no distributor.

Instead each coil pack is an independant ignition unit, triggered by a signal from the ECU.

That is why I find this failure so puzzling..

Not sure if it is true with these coil packs, but on some coil packs if the charging "ON" time is too long the coil will saturate. When it saturates it becomes just a piece of wire and will pull a large current, this will cause the coils to heat up (If it doesn't blow the transistors first). If you have an Oscope, take a look at the stock signal "ON" time vs. the new controller's "ON" time.

Originally posted by canzoomer
How the heck do you melt down a coil pack??

:eek: i gots no clue. that's totally nuts.

can you adjust your charge time? if youre using too much charge time you can burn em up

mike