Easiest way to identify which cylinder is missing?

[666DAN]

One of my coil-packs is playing up and I need to find out which one it is without pulling each one out and replacing one by one.

The main reason is, it's on good behaviour 90% of the time and would probably disappear by the time I've taken them out to replace. It's this 10% that's annoying as the ECU detects a problem an reduces power output Until the car is restarted again.

Any ideas?

[Terminal]

the way i did it was to have the engine on, with the coil cover off, then you just unplug each coil one at a time. if the engine starts to struggle, it's not that coil. then, swap over the suspected bad coil with a good one and redo the test. this is if your coil is completely buggered. if it's only happening 10% of the time i'm unsure of an easy method.

[666DAN]

Yeah because it's only sort of buggered it makes it hard to find....If it was dead it would be a piece of piss to find. I'll pop the top off though...in the hope that she starts to run on 5, then I can jump out and try removing them.

It's annoying me the potential the car has when they are all running OK...then suddenly 'm back to average performance

I may try the old electronic ear on the engine, it should point out the troubled cyclinder when it *blubs*

[Sumo]

I know how annoying intemittent faults are, They should either break for just keep working We have people in at work tryiing to get us to find intermittent faults, and there is nothing we can do unless it plays up for us.

Sumo

[666DAN]

Decided to wire in parallel with the ignitor signal plug at the back of the engine....then when it does play up I can look to see which coil isn't drawing current...then I only have to remove the cover to take the little bastard out

[BigDatto]

This is real easy. sorry I hadn't seen your thread earlier.

1. Remove the cover to expose the coils

2. With engine running, look (the first word I learned) at night/in the dark.

You can quite distinctly make out the little blue arcs from the coils. RB coilpacks are gooood & strong

seems almost too simple, eh?

I've had issues with coil packs too. Turned out to be nothing more than moisture, but the symptoms aren't that obvious at a glance. Invest in a can of silicon spray, & some easy labour & they generally won't trouble you.

Good luck with it.

[BigDatto]

[BigDatto]

Ooops... forgot to mention if one looks noticeably more intense, it's very likely shorting from the plates due to moisture. I believe that many perfectly OK coil packs get tossed just because of this.

[Sumo]

nice work, i never even thought of that

[Wes M]

you can also use a ohm meter to measure the resistance of the coils. The one that is dying may make a different reading to the rest.