My Weekend Project (car stuff)

[snakestang]

Last month I was lucky enough to have a coil go bad on the wifes 96 SHO. Well actually at first I was not sure what the deal was. With some help from Ford and an engine diagnosis we came to the conclusion either plugs or a coil that went bad.

If you are not familiar with the COP (coil on plug) design, basically you have a coil on top of each plug that fires in sequence. In most cars today you either had a single distributor and a single coil or coil packs that run banks of the engine. On most of the new cars you have no distributor (its run from the on board computer) and a COP design. Its said to be more efficient but can be very costly if one or more should go bad.

This would not have been such a big deal except for the fact that Ford decided upon a Yamaha V-8 for the 96-99 SHO as opposed to the V-6 of previous years. Sounded great to me and the old lady when we picked it up, and has never given us a single problem until now. To replace the back 4 plugs and check the COPS involves removing the entire 4 part upper intake. Still was not as bad as it looked but Ford wanted almost 600 bucks to change plugs and check each coil . I dont think so! Plugs were 40 bucks and a new coil (was 1 bad) cost 99 bucks.

Take a look at the pics and tell me what you would have done.

First is a starting pic:

[snakestang]

The next two shots are in considered in the process. I actually re-assembled the 3 parts of the intake sitting on the side of the car just for the picture. In order to get it off the car the had to be removed from the rear plenum chamber.

[snakestang]

Here you can see the individual COPS on the front 4 cylinders. The little black round things.

[Mossman]

I love SHO's. Was it fun?

[snakestang]

Let me say I have been working on all of my own cars for some time now. This seemed to be challenging. It was fun in the end to see that I could save myself 400 bucks and get it done in a timely manner.

I had a good time with it.

[Mossman]

I dunno if you've been cruising the classifieds lately, but if you were you'd probably know i screwed up my Pop's ram.

This has seriously gotten me to consider going into auto body repair. I dont know what i would have to do, but I am naturally pretty good at fixing stuff and making things with my hands. Honestly, this dent is pretty large, but there's no structural damagage and probably a 3x1" area that needs repainting. 1300 dollars? Who are you kidding? I know you have to run the shop, but that has to be pushing 100 + bucks an hour. Damn, if you owned your own shop and did good work that'd be money

Plus i like working on cars too, another bonus, but I couldnt change tires or oil all day. What terribleness

[Zumina]

8 X $99 hmmmmmmmmm gotta love ford!! What's advantageous to the COP design? I'd think having the coil itself exposed to more heat (buried under the plenum) would cook it faster.

[snakestang]

Mossman I have been following your for sale thread. That sucks about your dads truck. Any chance your insurance will pick up the tab? It really should not increase your rates unless you have had a lot of claims in the past. Good body shop guys are hard to find, well at least good guys that are reasonable in price. The best of luck with whatever you have to do to get it fixed.

Zumina, I have been told that the reason for the price is that the SHO coils are specific. If you look at my stang the coils are used in several other models, the Crown Vic, older T-Birds, as well as a few other vehicles. Those coils can be found much cheaper because they are readily available.

The COP design is supposed to be more reliable as well as more efficient then a standard distributor and coil design. So, you get better efficiency, which in turn creates more power and better fuel economy. Take into consideration that my SHO has over 90 thousand on it and this has been the only failure, I am more then happy to spend a couple hundred bucks on it. Also consider the fact that the car ran like a top on 7 cylinders for quite some time. Try doing that in a pushrod V-8 with a bad distributor or coil and see how far you get .

All in all 225 some odd horsepower out of a 3.4 liter V-8 aint to shabby in my eyes.

[FactsOfLife]

Gotta love SHO's. My 93 turned 135k last week and still rips the head lights out of just about everything on the road.

An amazing engine. 3.2l and a ton of ponies. Yamaha doesn't get enough credit for that series of engines.

[shartley]

Nice.

Good power from a small 8.

If you have not been, you might want to check out http://www.allfordmustangs.com

[scrambler]

good job

good job Chris! look at the money you saved for paintball. ido alot of my own work too, prices for mechanic work is outrageious anymore.

[snakestang]

Scrambler... More money torwards the Extreme.

Shartley you should have no problems with 400 horsepower! I believe ATI is making a ProCharger for the V-6 now so you could hit that area for a decent price. If you want to really kill yourself (and wallet) go for a blower and then shoot it with a quick shot of N2O to get it off the line. I have seen some very nice and very fast V-6 stangs. If you dont already you should check into Muscle Mustangs and Fast Fords magazine. Some very informative and usefull info on all types of Fords.

Facts, glad to hear your 93 is still kicking butt! Those were some very nice and fast cars (for a four door!). The only thing I was dissapointed with was the fact that the 5 speed was removed from the 96-99 lineup. Oh well its the wifes car anyway and she hates manuals.

[Zumina]

I meant to say what advantage does the COP have over a GM DIS system.

[snakestang]

If you are referring to the new DIS system which should entail COP then there should be no advantage since it would be the same. Both manufacturers tried DIS with coil packs and both had about the same amount of trouble with them. I have heard nothing but rumors on the coil pack since I have never owned a vehicle that uses them, so I am basing my opinion on that. Any thing else would be a lie.

From what I can tell the main advantage and which makes it more efficient is the fact that each coil only has to fire once per stroke. In a normal ignition you would have one coil firing up to 8 times per stroke depending on the number of cylinders.

Does the GM DIS system uses coil packs or COP? You have me curious and if I have time I might get to research it tonight.

Later
Chris

[Zumina]

GM DIS systems have one coil per cylinder(remotely mounted). I.e., a V6 has 6 coils put together in a "pack". The only advantage to COP that I can see is conductivity. However, with the advent of MSD, Accel, and Magnecor wires, I wouldn't be surprised if the system has DIS system has less resistence (hence the rarity of COP; or is it rare?).