Coilpack Conductors

[rorz]

Hey guys

I just removed my coil packs from my RB20DET and noticed that 3 out of the 6 coil packs are missing the little conductor at the end of the spring.

Is this a performance issue? I don't seem to have any audible missfires but i do have a bit of a flatspot betweet 4500-redline.

I imagine the spring still conducts fine by itself but not as well as if it had the conductor..

What are your thoughts?

Cheers

[Spurdo]

wouldnt worry about it too much, i've got a few sets of coils and yea some have the conductor and some dont. the ones that don't, never did have it as if you look at the end of the spring its wound in together so theres no room for a conductor to have ever been there. if you compare the end of the springs between one that had the conductor and one that didn't, you'd see what i mean.

not sure why nissan did this, or which one was used first. but obviously at some point they decided one was better than the other (i doubt it) from personal experience they both have very similar failure rates as i've been through plenty of each.

the only way to determine which coils are still good is to have them bench tested and see which ones leak under load. i really dont think the conductor will make any difference really, just check that the base of the pocket the spring sits in is showing bare metal and not corroded away.

[rorz]

Great thanks for the reply, looking again i do see what you mean, the ones without the carbon conductors have springs that are wound at the end anyway.

May i ask how you 'bench test' a coil pack? I'm considering buying some cheap second hand ones to fix my flat spot but i've heard mixed results about testing them with a multimeter.

[Spurdo]

yea multimeter is no good it wont show leaks which is what causes the bulk of the problems.

to be honest i cant actually remember exactly how its done, my dad is the genius with this sort of stuff he tested mine. it involved a 12 volt car battery, some other little contraption and some wires, get the coil sparking then wave another earthed conductor around the base of the coil and see if it draws the spark out somewhere it shouldnt. if the spark makes it out through the housing rather than coming off the spring then coil is no good.

there might be a thread on this somewhere, otherwise next time we bench test some coils i'll take photos and document it and i'll start a new thread so others can test their own

[rorz]

That would be really helpful, cheers mate