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So, I recently purchased an LS2 coil upgrade kit from Napol Performance. Since I wasn't able to find any RX-8 specific reviews, I thought I'd submit one myself.
Before I get to the good stuff, I want to mention that I know that there are better kits out there. I know that the BHR coil upgrade kit is considered by most to be the best available. I'm not saying this Napol Performance kit is just as good or better than the BHR kit. I can't say anything about the coils themselves, but the kit itself is inferior to BHR and the customer service isn't even in the same league. I knew all of this when I purchased this kit and I did so for my own reasons. No need to point out that I could have had a better kit if I'd saved my pennies for a little while longer. So, having said that, I hope someone can benefit from my experience with this supplier.
You can also purchase this kit on eBay, but the price is the same.
When the kit arrived I found that it was packed pretty well. The components appeared to me to be pretty well built. They were clean and nicely finished. I really only had a couple of gripes, which I'll mention in a moment.
Here's how it looked when I opened the box. Pretty well packaged.
The coil harness adapter was nicely built. No loose ends and everything was nicely finished.
The plug wires were pretty good. A couple of the boots didn't seem to be fully pushed in, and I wasn't able to budge them. But, they worked fine.
Here's a close up of a coil. They appear to be well built. No obvious signs of sloppy workmanship. Can't vouch for what's inside...
Here's the whole kit. Notice anything missing?
I really don't have any issues with the quality of the kit. Everything seems fine. My only real gripe is that it doesn't come with a mounting plate or any instructions for mounting the coils. For what it's worth, the web site and the eBay listing claim that this is a plug and play kit. Nope! I had to figure out a way to mount it on my own. I sent them an email and asked about that. They replied a couple of days later thanking me for noticing the mistake in their information. They said that they would update their info immediately. They also said they are working on a mounting plate that they were planning to offer sometime in May. They still haven't updated their info on the web site or on eBay and I haven't seen their mounting plate. Hope they eventually work that out as I think it would be a great addition to the kit.
First actual installation task was to pull the old coils. I started by removing the air box and the rubber hose going to the throttle body.
Here is the original coil mounting plate with the coil wires pulled and the first two coils removed.
I was kinda freaked out about getting things goofed up, so I marked the coil wires and the plug wires to make sure I reattached things in the right order.
Here are the old coils. You can tell that it is time to replace them. They were starting to crank hard to start the car.
So, I ended up mounting the coils to the original coil mounting plate. I ran some 1/4" threaded rod through the coil mounting holes, using nylon spacers and washers to line things up. I used some metal bits on the end to keep things together.
Here's how it looked after I first got them all mounted up, nice and neat.
Here's how things look on the other side. Notice I used some small angle brackets bolted to the base plate to lift the coils a bit to get them clear of the original mounting rods.
Here's a close up of one of the angle brackets that the threaded rod runs through.
So, at this point I've probably spent about 45 minutes working on the mod. That doesn't count about an hour standing in the local Ace hardware aisle scratching my head as i tried to figure out my approach to mounting the new coils on the plate. It really wasn't too hard to get the old coils out of the car. Mounting them was pretty easy. However, I ran into an issue trying to get the coils back into the car. It didn't fit.
When I first mounted the assembly in the old coil location the hole in the bracket didn't line up right. It was just a millimeter or two off.
I'm not sure if you can see in the photo that there is a sturdy black box thingy below the throttle body, right behind the mounting location. Unfortunately, my coil assembly was bumped up against this box thingy (I still don't know what it is) and the hole in the mounting plate didn't quite line up with the hole on the engine. Close, but not quite. In fact, it was close enough that I could kind of start the mounting bolt in the hole if I applied some force. I figured if I got the assembly fully mounted, things would work out ok. Unfortunately, as I forced the bolt in I sheared off the head.
My solution was two-fold. First, I took the assembly back to the table and I rearranged the spacers so that they moved slightly forward on the plate. It really didn't take much. I think by reassembling them with the short spacers on the rear end I was able to move them about 1/4" forward. That's all the space I needed.
The second part of the solution was dealing with the sheared off bolt in the mounting hole. I tried drilling it and backing it out with screw extractors. Unfortunately I wasn't able to drill a perfectly centered extraction hole in the bolt, or even a reasonably close to centered extraction hole. So, the extractor didn't work. I ended up using a self-tapping bolt and screwed the sucker through the mounting plate and into the hole I drilled in the broken bolt. Problem solved!
Here it is in all its DIY glory! Notice the 1st and 3rd plug boots don't seem to go all the way in? That's because the boots weren't pushed all the way onto the wire, as I mentioned previously.
Once I got the assembly bolted back on it was a pretty quick job to reconnect the wires. Since I was replacing the coils and wires I decided to replace the spark plugs as well. At the time I really didn't know if I could use the same OEM plugs or if I needed something different because of the different coils. Following advice I received here on the forum, I sent the question to Napol. It took two days to hear back from them. Here is their response:
That is a very solid question Sir. The OEM Spark Plugs should work without issue but I do know alot of guys will buy an upgraded Spark Plug. I'm not sure what they are running, but this is a super common conversion so hopefully it would be an easy google search for you. If you cant find anything else on it let me know and I will do some digging.
Hmm... two days for them to tell me to Google the information. Not exactly a win for Napol Performance customer support.
I ended up going with the NGK iridium plugs and a couple of folks here confirmed that they would be A-OK!
So, I did notice that the new wires were all more-or-less the same length. It would have been nice if the wires matched the OEM lengths. They work just fine, but there was kind of a mess of loose wires stuffed into the space next to the coil assembly. I really should get a loom or something...
Anyway, got everything installed, and buttoned up. How do they work? Well, when I started the car they cranked right up. I think they start quicker than my old ones, but those were pretty worn out, so I can't confirm that the D585 plugs start quicker than the old ones. What I can say is that the car pulls a lot smoother. Like, during acceleration or up hills and whatnot. I can tell that the engine just eases into the higher revs and the power just kinda slides in when I need it. Idling is smoother, too. But, again, that might be because of the old coils.
I haven't had a chance to calculate fuel economy, but it feels good and I think I'm driving a bit farther on a tank of gas. I wouldn't be surprised to find that I'm getting better mileage.
So, all-in-all, I'm satisfied with the kit from Napol Performance. It isn't a BHR kit, but I wasn't expecting it to be. I've only used it for a week or so, so I can't comment on longevity and product quality. I'll post updates if things go wrong with these.
As far as I know, some FI guys are using RX7 plugs. I wouldn't call it "a lot" by any means. Based on his reply though it doesn't sound like they're too familiar with the platform.
I'm willing to bet this is just a generic kit which they make several different adapter harnesses for. Hence why they didn't even know they needed a mounting plate, or have any advice beyond "google it".
Cobbled together junk, look how long the wires are, I think Reoze is right about it being one size fits all. But the most annoying thing is when they call these Corvette coils when these coils were never in a Vette, or even on an LS engine for that matter.
For $200 and make your own bracket it seems reasonable to me
You kind of set yourself up for the not so unexpected crapfest though. Next time just stick to the main basic points and leave all the play-by-play detail out. Ok, you made a few mistakes in the process of educating yourself along the way. While that's relevant to your personal growth experience, it's otherwise TMI for everyone else and just sets you up to be ridiculed for whatever reason someone may have. On this topic they have plenty of them, you can trust me on that.
Otherwise sounds like you learned a few things, had some fun doing it, and also got to experience a sense of accomplishment seeing it through to the end with a positive result. Well, it made me think back to when I was young and starting out. Thanks for that.
Thanks for posting this info! I installed the NAPOL RX8 ignition coils on mine this spring they are still running FANTASTIC! Can't beat this quality for the money and when I bought mine I think it was a 2 year warranty. Don't let the BHR fan boys get you down there is nothing wrong with these coils. And not inquiring about the bracket is an honest mistake. Some poeple are so insecure they feel the need to put others down to make themselves feel better... and would have you believe they were born perfect and never make any mistakes themselves... don't waste your time with the background noise just do your thing and be proud of it.
Unless these guys have tried them in their own cars their opinions aint worth squat.
And here is what you do to avoid the negative noise... speak your mind and simply **UNSUBSCRIBE** from the thread as I have just done and avoid all negative nellies that can't play nice.
Thanks for posting this info! I installed the NAPOL RX8 ignition coils on mine this spring they are still running FANTASTIC! Can't beat this quality for the money and when I bought mine I think it was a 2 year warranty. Don't let the BHR fan boys get you down there is nothing wrong with these coils. And not inquiring about the bracket is an honest mistake. Some poeple are so insecure they feel the need to put others down to make themselves feel better... and would have you believe they were born perfect and never make any mistakes themselves... don't waste your time with the background noise just do your thing and be proud of it.
Unless these guys have tried them in their own cars their opinions aint worth squat.
And here is what you do to avoid the negative noise... speak your mind and simply **UNSUBSCRIBE** from the thread as I have just done and avoid all negative nellies that can't play nice.
06-19-2017, 11:45 PM
