What could cause this to happen to the coil pack

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MCH86GN

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 20, 2008
Messages
1,478
The coil pack was really hot and I could smell the plastic or PCB being burnt and when I checked some material fell off and there was a crack in the plastic.

Surprisingly the tower pack resistance is still in spec.

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There's also the input resistance and the resistance between the input and output sides of the coilpack.
 
There's also the input resistance and the resistance between the input and output sides of the coilpack.
Do need to remove the coil pack from the CCCI to measure that resistance? Or can you measure it from the input terminals/pins? In looking at the pin-out for the CCCI, I think you would need to pull the coil pack off to check that resistance. I don't see any pins that would allow that measurement.
 
Do need to remove the coil pack from the CCCI to measure that resistance? Or can you measure it from the input terminals/pins? In looking at the pin-out for the CCCI, I think you would need to pull the coil pack off to check that resistance. I don't see any pins that would allow that measurement.

That is correct, to check primary coil resistance you will need to remove the pack and test from the terminals underneath the coil. Not that it matters too much at this point though ;)
 
That is correct, to check primary coil resistance you will need to remove the pack and test from the terminals underneath the coil. Not that it matters too much at this point though ;)
Why doesn't it matter? Are you saying that the coil pack is fried - not LOL? Someway, somehow, one of the coils got shorted directly to vbat or it was connected to vbat and got shorted to ground. I'm wondering what else in my electrical system got hosed. I will be doing a thorough inspection. I hope my ECM is ok, although I have a spare. I still need to know how it happened. Initially my car was bucking at a certain RPM and then it stalled. It wouldn't start so I got it towed home and when I looked under the hood I initially didn't see anything, but when I touched the coil pack the part where it is cracked was so hot I could touch it and I could smell burnt plastic. I have another know good coil pack and ignition module, however, I am afraid to hook it up. My initial thought was the crank sensor was going and finally gone. So I have a few things to sort out and not a lot of time left because summer is quickly coming to an end for us in the north. In addition this past weekend, my car got hit by a rock, left a nice scratch and dent, when I was driving it home and someone backed into my passenger's side mirror and bending the sheet metal and leaving a small scratch. Unfortunately I didn't see the person do it, some other people witnessed it but didn't get a plate number. Not my weekend.
 
Probably a defect in the coil pack, never seen one do that before. I wouldn't trust that coil pack even if you with it connected to the ignition control module pulled around 11.4k ohms off the towers. With my coil pack hooked up i'm seeing 12.44k to 12.46k ohms across all the towers ( all within 0.01k ohms to 0.02 k ohms of each tower pair) and have no burning or smell issues.
If it's heating up that much and you can smell it burning, it'd be wise to get a replacement coil pack. If you can use it for a core charge, that'd be all it really is good for outside of learning how they are built inside.

The bucking you had probably was the spark being disrupted at the coils as the more engine rpm, the more spark is needed.


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that looks like it might have been cut with an arc.
Well, I have a known good one to replace it, but I'm wondering it if was the pack itself or if something else caused it. Dave Roland, who knows these cars very well, had my car last week and he just tested my coil pack and said it was good. Because my car was stumbling or bucking at higher speed or RPM. Originally I thought this was a crank sensor issue, now I'm not so sure. However, I will check my crank sensor tonight. I have a portable o-scope and I'm going to crank the car and see what the signal looks like coming from the sensor. Luckily I can access the pin from the connector that goes to the ignition module. I'm also going to check the CAM signal. I hope to capture the signal profile and save it and post it so people will have an idea of what the waveform should look like.
 
It could of been something that didnt show up in the testing last week that showed up later, coil packs can test good and fail at any moment under the right circumstances.
It's possible the crank sensor could be damaged or malfunctioning, but it could just been the coil actting up but not showing up in testing.


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Probably a defect in the coil pack, never seen one do that before. I wouldn't trust that coil pack even if you with it connected to the ignition control module pulled around 11.4k ohms off the towers. With my coil pack hooked up i'm seeing 12.44k to 12.46k ohms across all the towers ( all within 0.01k ohms to 0.02 k ohms of each tower pair) and have no burning or smell issues.
If it's heating up that much and you can smell it burning, it'd be wise to get a replacement coil pack. If you can use it for a core charge, that'd be all it really is good for outside of learning how they are built inside.

The bucking you had probably was the spark being disrupted at the coils as the more engine rpm, the more spark is needed.


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Thankfully, I have a known good replacement. However, I'm scared to hook it up because I don't understand how that happened. I'm going to be doing a lot of double checking of the wiring harness. I have started looking at the vortexbuicks site and it has a lot of good information.
 
I have seen a plug wire jump off and jump fire and do that to a coil , it tries to find a ground and it will look like its welding .
 
I'd look at the plug wires to see if any don't fit snug on the terminals of the coil pack and if i were you would ask that guru to come over and help you go over some stuff just to be safe.
I'd get a new plug wire set just to be safe, in case one of the old ones isnt staying tightly on.

There's 2 different waveforms of crankshaft ref signal, one low side during intial starting and then it switches over to the high side when the engine is over a certain rpm range that eventually the car fires up under. If the crank sensor becomes mis-aligned too much or any of the teeth are damaged on it bad enough, it'll mess with which waveform is being read and cause the car not to start up. Installing the sensor on the sensor mounting bracket too far will have it sending the high side instead of the low side signal resulting in a crank over but no start situation.
But a quick test is hook up the known good coil pack and see if it'll run just to rule out coil.

You do have a scanmaster on the car right?
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Why doesn't it matter? Are you saying that the coil pack is fried - not LOL? Someway, somehow, one of the coils got shorted directly to vbat or it was connected to vbat and got shorted to ground. I'm wondering what else in my electrical system got hosed. I will be doing a thorough inspection. I hope my ECM is ok, although I have a spare. I still need to know how it happened. Initially my car was bucking at a certain RPM and then it stalled. It wouldn't start so I got it towed home and when I looked under the hood I initially didn't see anything, but when I touched the coil pack the part where it is cracked was so hot I could touch it and I could smell burnt plastic. I have another know good coil pack and ignition module, however, I am afraid to hook it up. My initial thought was the crank sensor was going and finally gone. So I have a few things to sort out and not a lot of time left because summer is quickly coming to an end for us in the north. In addition this past weekend, my car got hit by a rock, left a nice scratch and dent, when I was driving it home and someone backed into my passenger's side mirror and bending the sheet metal and leaving a small scratch. Unfortunately I didn't see the person do it, some other people witnessed it but didn't get a plate number. Not my weekend.

What I meant was that the primary coil resistance no longer matters as the coil is clearly no good and the primary resistance was definitely not the cause, no need to take offense. Best of luck with sorting it out.
 
I have seen a plug wire jump off and jump fire and do that to a coil , it tries to find a ground and it will look like its welding .

I was thinking the same thing. Check the plug wires for any burnt spots, splits, etc. Run the car at night and look around for any sparks.
 
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