Toyota Echo/Yaris Coil pack conversion for RB25DET

[iMick]

Toyota Echo/Yaris Coil pack conversion for RB25DET

Yooo, 

This is a full conversion guide from RB25det to Yaris/echo coil packs.

In this guide, i'm going to try and include as much information as I can but please forgive me as i'm an electrician and not the best at writing.

This is an insight how I did it. Please treat this as a guide, and don’t crucify me if you don’t agree on something I’ve done cheers.

 - Please read full guide before attempting coil pack conversion, cheers.

First, bit of background:

I decided to attempt to convert my RB25det to yaris coil packs, I found there's not a huge amount of information out there about this conversion other then people just selling "conversion kits". I found a few really good informative websites about coilpacks & wiring information (which i'll link), and a few photos of some rb's that have been converted, other then that I didn't really find any guide for it.

I personally was on a bit of a budget & thought what you got in the conversion kits for the money plainly wasn't worth it.

 

Why Yaris/echo coil packs?

-Cheap (i'll include prices of what i paid for everything.)

-Reliable

-Don't suffer from heatsoak as bad as Splitfires or OEM coilpacks

-Good for 100hp per cylinder

-Easily attainable

-Tried and proved method, common conversion for the 1j and 2jz boys.

-Heaps of information around for them, including dwell times etc

 

Part 1:

First thing to do is get some coil packs and plugs, I decided to go for Toyota Echo/Yaris coil packs part number:

DENSO 90919-02240,

I went to 2 local wreckers and found 8 coil packs for a total of $100, depending where you go this might vary. I could have got 6, but for the money & the chance of me blowing them up, I thought it would be a good idea to get spares.

 

A trip down to DIY Wreckers with a pair of side cutters looking for Corollas, Camrys, Echos and yaris’s  for the 4PIN denso coil pack plugs, these cost me next to nothing, make sure when you cut them off you leave yourself plenty of wire to rejoin them. Check (if you live in usa): Costco Weekly Ad, or Supercheap Auto Catalogue.

 

 

Part 2: Mounting plate

After looking at a few of the conversion kits, & photos of finished cars this is what I came up with.

I used aluminium 4mm plate.

The 3 bolts I used to mount the plate to the cylinder head were 70mm long, same thread as the standard coil pack bolts that go into the head.

 I also got a 12mm long bolt the same thread to earth the head using an eyelet using the last bolt. Think they’re 10mm metric.

 

Mounting coil packs to plate:

While I was at the bolt shop I also got 6 x 10mm bolts 35mm long, with 12x nuts.

I used the bolts from the bottom, up through the top of the plate & secured them with a nut, then with a washer & an extra nut secured the coil pack to the plate.

I don’t have measurements of these holes, as I marked them on the car with a sharpie.

Picture tells a thousand words:

Wiring:

Here we go, the wiring:

When using the Denso coil packs, I found the wiring diagram and information about the coil packs on:

http://www.sq-engineering.com/tech-articles/coilpack-info-guide

[Pin 1] Earth / common ground: This grounds each coil to the body / earth, an electric connection to to the cam cover alone is not at all suggested.

[Pin 2] IGT / trigger: The signal wire to activate the firing of the coil, triggered directly from the ECU's ignition output. These can paired with another coil for a waste spark connection, for example using two ECU ignition outputs to run four coilpacks. See the next section for more on this subject.

[Pin 3] IGF / ignition feedback: Used by OEM ECU's to confirm the firing of the ignition coil. If a coil malfunctions the ECU will sense the lack of this fire confirmation and put itself into a fault / limp mode. This is not normally used at all with an aftermarket /stand-alone ECU and hence only three wires are used for each coil.

[Pin 4] Power (+) / ignition power: This is the main power supply for all of the coils, this power feed is activated when the key is turned to the "Ignition" position. The most common and suggested method of connection during a conversion on a four cylinder is to remove the power feed from the original single ignition coil and use it to power all four of the new coilpacks.

Pulled straight from SQ engineering, whoever you are thanks!!!! I’ll buy you a 6pack get in touch with me.

Now that we know the pin outs of the Coil pack, it’s simply easy to just work out the skyline coil pack trigger wire pin out, & use the factory 12v plug to give them power.

 

Coil Pack Trigger wire colours for S1 RB25det

Cylinder numbering goes from Front of block towards the back.

Cylinder 1: Blue and Orange

Cylinder 2: Blue and Black

Cylinder 3: Blue and Red

Cylinder 4: Blue and Yellow

Cylinder 5: Grey and Black

Cylinder 6: Purple and White

To join the factory trigger wires to the new coil packs, I cut the factory plug off the trigger wires, bought a 6pin water proof automotive connector from jaycar & terminated my new coil pack loom and the factory harness to the corresponding wires.

For 12v i cut the factory plug off the original 2pin connector off your old coil pack harness & solder that to your ground and 12v, think the white was + and black/red was -.

Use your multimeter to confirm this.

The ground wire (-) needs to be doubled up with the ground from the 2 pin plug & also your cylinder head.

Before taping:

Finished product:

Once loomed all taped up, plate and coil packs mounted. 

Drives awesome, no hesitation at around 17psi.

 

This guide got way out of hand. F***.

If anything seems unclear please let me know so i can edit, cheers.

[-S-]

I take it this will not work on s2 rb25 ?

[PranK]

Wow, great post!! Adding to DIY list.

[iMick]

38 minutes ago, -S- said:

I take it this will not work on s2 rb25 ?

Yes of course this will work on s2.

the only difference with s1 and s2 coil pack wiring is that on series 1 the trigger wires go to the igniter first and then to the coils. So you just disconnect the igniter & use the trigger wires on the input side of the igniter.

if you have a series 2 you don't have an ignitor & the trigger wires go directly to the coils- confirm the colours of the 6 trigger wires and wire them up.

its probably easier to do s2, as they're more a similar setup. 

-----

also some information on dwell time: 

My response to question about base dwell time on facebook:

Between 2-3 millisecond, which I'm pretty sure is close to the standard coil packs. 
These DENSO coil packs are known for being fairly rugged, 

http://www.sq-engineering.com/tech-articles/coilpack-info-guide

There's an interesting paragraph on that site, that talks about that most new COP actually have a preset minimum dwell time these coils will fire at if you run it too low. 

However I don't know if the minimum hard wired dwell time is the correct dwell for the coil to operate efficiently. 

I have mine at around 2.5m/s dwell at 13.5v.
Seem to be fine

I don't know at what point these will prefire at and don't want to know haha. I wouldn't run anymore then 4m/s to be safe

 

---

please remember I'm not a professional about coil packs, this is only information I've gathered myself & could be wrong .

cheers. 

[Unkn0wn]

cheers for the write-up, ive been considering this mod, but getting "kit" from Gobbys...

i know when i went LS coils on my sr/nistune, the ecu would ocasially throw up an ignition error code (dosent put up a error light, just pulls it up in ecu errors) ... is this the same for this swap?

the dwell time on the sr, whitch i think is similar to the rb is dependent on voltage and RPM, but most of the time you will see it around 2.5 to 3 Ms

 

[r32silvergts]

Exactly how i did mine. Even mounted em the same and made a simalar plate .

[iMick]

2 hours ago, Unkn0wn said:

cheers for the write-up, ive been considering this mod, but getting "kit" from Gobbys...

i know when i went LS coils on my sr/nistune, the ecu would ocasially throw up an ignition error code (dosent put up a error light, just pulls it up in ecu errors) ... is this the same for this swap?

the dwell time on the sr, whitch i think is similar to the rb is dependent on voltage and RPM, but most of the time you will see it around 2.5 to 3 Ms

 

  Could quite possibly throw a code on an ecu, I'm not sure.

are the factory SR coil packs 4 wire? If so your ecu might be missing the return signal some coilpacks send out to say they've fired, if the ecu is not receiving this signal I'm sure itll throw a code. 

I have an adaptronic modular ecu and it's all good. 

47 minutes ago, r32silvergts said:

Exactly how i did mine. Even mounted em the same and made a simalar plate .

Awesome, as I said I saw a few photos of how some other people have done it and decided to give it a crack myself and share my findings. 

Cheers

[Unkn0wn]

Factory 3 wire, thro an igniter similar to s1 rb's 

[iMick]

17 hours ago, Unkn0wn said:

Factory 3 wire, thro an igniter similar to s1 rb's 

Can't image these throwing codes then but never know... 

thanks for the feedback from everyone too guys, makes it worth the time of writing the guide!

[kingtube69]

Brilliant write up Mick, this will definitely. Funnily enough I used to have a 20V Corolla and bought tons of stuff from Sam (owner of SQ Engineering) he is a genuinely knowledgeable bloke and continually works on improvements for beams motors, 20vs etc. 

[Boostman]

Will this work with stock ECU?

[iTzTMG]

54 minutes ago, Boostman said:

Will this work with stock ECU?

Yes it will, I'm running them on the stock ECU at the moment.

[iMick]

On 5/3/2017 at 10:49 PM, kingtube69 said:

Brilliant write up Mick, this will definitely. Funnily enough I used to have a 20V Corolla and bought tons of stuff from Sam (owner of SQ Engineering) he is a genuinely knowledgeable bloke and continually works on improvements for beams motors, 20vs etc. 

Yeah, they do some really cool stuff for other engines as well, & sell some awesome gear. Should follow them on FB

Also a bit of an update, i've run them for quite a few months now & they haven't missed a beat. However i decided to go back to a 1.1mm sparkplug gap to see how they'll go & they seemed to run fairly ok at 15-17psi but occasionally in 3rd on wide open throttle there was the slightest stutter ...
Maybe this could be fixed with more dwell time or not second hand coils (lol)? I don't know, I just decided just to go back to a .9 gap & its smooth. 

Edited July 20, 2017 by iMick

[Tubz13]

I did this conversion to my series 2 and it's sweet ..

the only problem I've had is that three of my coils have failed and I'm not sure why especially cause I used ALL BRAND NEW ones .. My dwell settings are all good and it was all done by a tuner so I'm wondering what would cause them to fail being they should be a fairly reliable any ideas?? 

Thanks 

Edited August 29, 2017 by Tubz13

[iMick]

17 hours ago, Tubz13 said:

I did this conversion to my series 2 and it's sweet ..

the only problem I've had is that three of my coils have failed and I'm not sure why especially cause I used ALL BRAND NEW ones .. My dwell settings are all good and it was all done by a tuner so I'm wondering what would cause them to fail being they should be a fairly reliable any ideas?? 

Thanks 

Hey mate it's hard to tell without seeing the car...

however I would be checking that the coils are definitely getting 12v with a good ground 

have sufficient sized wiring & quality connections/joins 

& that the coils are not cheap knock offs & are genuine DENSO

My junkyard coils have been bulletproof so far, 

the only improvement I want to do is put a tack weld on the nut/bolt that holds the coil to the plate to stop it loosing off when changing plugs. But its not a very big deal lol 

 

[Tubz13]

Yeah true thanks man I'll have to check the wiring cause it could be a little dodgy 

they're all definitely denso ones but

[K_arlstrom]

Great guide! Did something similar with NGK U5014 coils, they have very similar dwell time as the stock coils and are supposed to be the most reliable out of the VAG assortment.

This cost me less than 200€ (including connectors) and I can buy new coils pretty much anywhere in Sweden if one breaks down, people claim over 200 hp capability on these. Now I should complete the new middle cover and tidy up the rest of the engine bay...

Edited November 11, 2017 by K_arlstrom
Spelling

[Paymh]

I know this is an old thread but the second wire (black/red) on the two pin connector is most definitely not a ground. If you take apart the OEM harness it connects solely to the cylinder 1 trigger wire. Obviously not a ground, not sure what damage grounding that / using as a ground would be but not preferable..

[Bulakey]

Hey guys im pretty keen to do this coil upgrade on my rb20det as i dont see the point of spending $650 on splitfires, but before i do id like to clarify whether i keep the ignitor module in the car or do i run the ignition wire straight from the ecu to the coilpack? Cheers 

[Nate NRP]

Just did this on my rb25det, dyno tomorrow morning