Spark Plugs Or Not?

[AYW550]

does a r34 rb25de NEO motor have spark plugs as well as coils? ive got a very badly, 'lumpy' running motor at the moment (primary ignition fault code) and am planning to get some splitfires as im sure ive got at least one bad coil, but ive been reading some other threads and someone mentioned an r34 having both NKG spark plugs and splitfire coils, so which is it? is this the difference btw series 1 and series 2 motors? im confused as F#$% now

[MissR34]

hey dude

yes the r34 has both coil packs and spark plugs. the spark plugs are located underneath the coil pack itself.

does it sound like a wrx? (only cause you say "lumpy" - so obviously your car isnt running on all 6 cylinders)

if so then yes it is most likely a coilpack. if your going to replace your spark plugs probably go with ones that have a heat rating of 5 or 6 (NGK brand ones)

there is no real difference between series 1 and series 2 NA motors. there is a difference with the turbo engines however.

hope this helps to confuse you less!

[99 GTT]

Yea UMM..

Well all cars that i know of have Spark plugs.... So it may be bad, old, wrong heat type plugs but good chance that it is your coilpacks.. Best choice by far is the Splitfire coils but i would put in a new set of Plugs also if you have not done this as yet...

Let us know hey..

[mid life crisis]

nah it dont have plugs just fill it with diesal

[MissR34]

i dont really think a comment like that was necessary dude.......

[Turk1]

Hmm my cars jumps a little on idle when its warm and after a while of driving it will misfire/pop in the low revs.....any idea whats going on with myne?

And yes my guess would be the coils.

[AYW550]

so why do coils make a spark then? isnt that the spark plugs job? lol, sry... clearly i dont fully understand the concept of how coils work with spark plugs in an rb motor

do the coil packs simply replace the spark plug wires of older cars, by delivering a electrical signal or 'spark' to the spark plugs when given the right signal from the cars computer?

and yes, my tuner likened it to the sound of a subaru once i got the new exhaust system on it with the engine problem

Edited August 7, 2009 by AYW550

[MissR34]

if your tuner has said that yes it does sound somewhat like a wrx then it is gauranteed to be a coilpack......mine did it 3 times lol

anyways here is some info for you to help you understand a lil more:

­The spark plug is quite simple in theory: It forces electricity to arc across a gap, just like a bolt of lightning. The electricity must be at a very high voltage in order to travel across the gap and create a good spark. Voltage at the spark plug can be anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000 volts.

The spark plug must have an insulated passageway for this high voltage to travel down to the electrode, where it can jump the gap and, from there, be conducted into the engine block and grounded. The plug also has to withstand the extreme heat and pressure inside the cylinder, and must be designed so that deposits from fuel additives do not build up on the plug.

Spark plugs use a ceramic insert to isolate the high voltage at the electrode, ensuring that the spark happens at the tip of the electrode and not anywhere else on the plug; this insert does double-duty by helping to burn off deposits. Ceramic is a fairly poor heat conductor, so the material gets quite hot during operation. This heat helps to burn off deposits from the electrode

Some cars require a hot plug. This type of plug is designed with a ceramic insert that has a smaller contact area with the metal part of the plug. This reduces the heat transfer from the ceramic, making it run hotter and thus burn away more deposits. Cold plugs are designed with more contact area, so they run cooler.

The difference between a "hot" and a "cold" spark plug is in the shape of the ceramic tip. (which is inside the plug itself)

The carmaker will select the right temperature plug for each car. Some cars with high-performance engines naturally generate more heat, so they need colder plugs. If the spark plug gets too hot, it could ignite the fuel before the spark fires; so it is important to stick with the right type of plug for your car

­The coil is a simple device -- essentially a high-voltage transformer made up of two coils of wire. One coil of wire is called the primary coil. Wrapped around it is the secondary coil. The secondary coil normally has hundreds of times more turns of wire than the primary coil.

Current flows from the battery through the primary winding of the coil.

The primary coil's current can be suddenly disrupted by the breaker points, or by a solid-state device in an electronic ignition.

If you think the coil looks like an electromagnet, you're right -- but it is also an inductor. The key to the coil's operation is what happens when the circuit is suddenly broken by the points. The magnetic field of the primary coil collapses rapidly. The secondary coil is engulfed by a powerful and changing magnetic field. This field induces a current in the coils -- a very high-voltage current (up to 100,000 volts) because of the number of coils in the secondary winding. The secondary coil feeds this voltage to the distributor via a very well insulated, high-voltage wire.

most older older cars have leads (such as my 1985 AE82 Corolla), instead of coilpacks (which is what the skyline uses), but both do the same job as they are attached to the spark plug itself

hope this helps

[99 GTT]

^^^ Well said Cara... Well covered i think..

[AYW550]

yup, thanks cara, guess ill be replacing all plugs and coils when i get my cam belt done, ....what a horrible bill that shall be

[bozodos]

a more concise non copypasta version is basically your 'splitfire or whatever brand' coilpacks are the blue or black things in the middle of the top of the motor with wires running to them and all petrol engines (AFAIK) have plugs. With the questions you're asking though, please don't do any work on it yourself since you're obviously new to motors. Older motors have a distributor and leads running to the plugs, with the twin cam RB motors the coil is directly on top of the plug and controlled either by an external amplifier on top of the motor or internally in the ecu (series 2 R33 and NEO).

www.howstuffworks.com is good for explaining basic automotive concepts.

its not always the coilpacks, a mate had a similar problem in his RB25DET NEO, it turned out to be ECU related, but try taping yours up first to see if it helps, there are plenty of threads on fixing coil packs.

[mad082]

a more concise non copypasta version is basically your 'splitfire or whatever brand' coilpacks are the blue or black things in the middle of the top of the motor with wires running to them and all petrol engines (AFAIK) have plugs. With the questions you're asking though, please don't do any work on it yourself since you're obviously new to motors. Older motors have a distributor and leads running to the plugs, with the twin cam RB motors the coil is directly on top of the plug and controlled either by an external amplifier on top of the motor or internally in the ecu (series 2 R33 and NEO).

www.howstuffworks.com is good for explaining basic automotive concepts.

its not always the coilpacks, a mate had a similar problem in his RB25DET NEO, it turned out to be ECU related, but try taping yours up first to see if it helps, there are plenty of threads on fixing coil packs.

*makes buzzer noise*

wrong. s2 r33 and r34 have the ignitor built into the coils not the ecu. that is why the coils are different. if the ignitor was in the ecu then you could run the same coils in s1 33 and s2 33.

and to slightly correct the rest of what you said,

older cars (and any new car with a distributor, such as the fwd sr20's and a massive list of others) had 1 coil which then sent the charge through a single lead to the distributor when then did as the name suggests and distribute the charge to each spark plug. the distributor is driven by the cam so that it rotates once for every revolution of the engine and as it does the rotor button passes contacts for each cylinder (arranged in the correct firing order) sends the charge to each spark plug making it fire. this is a very simple system and needs no ecu to actually make it operate as it is purely a mechanical system. however to be able to make the timing variable (not the cam timing but just the ignition timing) you need the ecu to play a bit of a role as far as when it tells the coil to send the charge. although a lot of older cars had the timing slightly altered via the engine vaccum.

on new cars with individual coils, the engine has a sensor attatched to the cam instead of the distributor, in order to tell the ecu when to fire. the ecu then sends a signal to the the ignitor which then sends it to the coils which fire straight away.

the easiest way to think of it for modern cars is this:

the spark plug is like a bullet and the ecu is the gun and the coil is like the gunpowder. if you have a bullet with no gun powder, when you pull the trigger the bullet will only go a few metres out of the end of the barrel (you could probably throw it further by hand). the gun powder (coil) is what gives it the power to do what it is supposed to do.

[mad082]

most older older cars have leads (such as my 1985 AE82 Corolla), instead of coilpacks (which is what the skyline uses), but both do the same job as they are attached to the spark plug itself

hope this helps

since you are trying to help him learn, here's a few points for you to learn as well. first leads are not the same as coilpacks. completely different (in your post it sounds like you are saying that coils and leads do the same thing). it is like saying a tyre and a rim with a tyre on it are the same thing. coils are what makes the charge to make the spark plug spark. leads just carry that current from the coil to the spark plugs.

technically speaking your skyline has leads. the leads on the skyline aren't really leads though as they are only tiny (like 1cm long), but they are still there. they are at the base of the coil pack (the bit that the spark plug goes into). leads don't actually supply power, they just carry the current.

your old corolla will have a coil, but only one instead of multiple ones. if you follow your ignition leads back to the distributor you will find that it actually has 5 leads coming out of it. usually 4 around the outside and 1 in the middle. if you follow the middle lead you will find the coil.

[AYW550]

a more concise non copypasta version is basically your 'splitfire or whatever brand' coilpacks are the blue or black things in the middle of the top of the motor with wires running to them and all petrol engines (AFAIK) have plugs. With the questions you're asking though, please don't do any work on it yourself since you're obviously new to motors. Older motors have a distributor and leads running to the plugs, with the twin cam RB motors the coil is directly on top of the plug and controlled either by an external amplifier on top of the motor or internally in the ecu (series 2 R33 and NEO).

www.howstuffworks.com is good for explaining basic automotive concepts.

its not always the coilpacks, a mate had a similar problem in his RB25DET NEO, it turned out to be ECU related, but try taping yours up first to see if it helps, there are plenty of threads on fixing coil packs.

maybe your the one who shouldnt be working on any motors yourself, even i still knew that a NEO has its own ignitors on each coil and im good enough with a couple of tools to have had my coils and plugs out in less than an hour

i just simply hadnt been exposed to individual coil packs at all before my recent misfire problem, and at first glance, a coil pack looks like it could have sat down in the cylinder in place of a spark plug, i didnt know they were only made from plastic and couldnt take the heat

[bozodos]

dude you asked if it had spark plugs or coils you f**king idiot. I bet you didnt know that you needed to drain the old oil when you service it too. You don't have to be 'good' with tools to be able to take the coil packs off and plugs out, it's hardly a complex job (even for a sheep shagger such as yourself).

Whilst I may have mistaken the location of the ignitors in the Series 2 / NEO motor, its a common misconception, and I was quickly corrected by Mad082.

Edited August 11, 2009 by bozodos

[SL33K]

dude you asked if it had spark plugs or coils you f**king idiot. I bet you didnt know that you needed to drain the old oil when you service it too. You don't have to be 'good' with tools to be able to take the coil packs off and plugs out, it's hardly a complex job (even for a sheep shagger such as yourself).

Whilst I may have mistaken the location of the ignitors in the Series 2 / NEO motor, its a common misconception, and I was quickly corrected by Mad082.

-1

[MissR34]

dude you asked if it had spark plugs or coils you f**king idiot. I bet you didnt know that you needed to drain the old oil when you service it too. You don't have to be 'good' with tools to be able to take the coil packs off and plugs out, it's hardly a complex job (even for a sheep shagger such as yourself).

Whilst I may have mistaken the location of the ignitors in the Series 2 / NEO motor, its a common misconception, and I was quickly corrected by Mad082.

its comments like this that are totally unacceptable!

There is no need to be like this towards anyone - no matter how silly we think the question is! This is how SAU will lose people on the forum because of comments like this. It is not appropraite at all!

Maybe some should think of the old saying: if you dont have anything nice to say dont say it at all!

[r32na]

bozobos, u twat, ur biggn a hole, u and ur turbo get out of thread and N/A forum

[mad082]

he wasn't the only one to not play nice. awy550 insulted him by saying that he shouldn't be working on engines because he didn't know about the coils having ignitors in them (which, judging by the amount of times i have read that recently, about 1/3 of people on sau seem to think the same thing, which is typical of a forum. people read something on the internet and think it must be true and then all their mates who also then think it is true). and since ayw550 originally asked if his car had both spark plugs and coils (which is a much more silly question that simply being misinformed about the location of the ignitor when there are many other people on this forum who think the same thing and are the reason more and more people also get it wrong), then to come out and insult bozodos for not knowing anything seems very much a case of the pot calling the kettle african american.

so i actually think that ayw550 is the person in the wrong here, however bozodos could've reacted better (even though i would've reacted the same way, probably worse).

[MissR34]

and how is ayw550 the wrong person here? they have asked a question, and now they are getting flamed for their question.....not very "community" like now is it?

i thought SAU was supposed to be a "community" where everyone got on here to talk about the one thing we all have in common: owning a skyline (or about to own a skyline etc)....yet these days it seems like if you ask a question, no matter how simple or silly it might be to other people, it makes you "in the wrong".........

i guess its easy to say things here on the forum and not to someones face. its easy to be a keyboard warrior. its easy to bag someone out on the internet. makes me sick that people do that these days, i mean seriously get the f** over yourself, grow up and start helping people instead of putting them down ffs.