Hello Fella's,

I reciently tuned up my truck with bosch platinum 2 plugs and Accel Super Coils. (c.o.p) I had to wait for the coils to come (approx 9 days). As soon as I installed the coils everything went south!!!!!! The truck has a rough idle and stalld. I put over 150 miles on the truck waiting for the pcm to recalibrate, It dident happen. I took the Accel Super Coils off and put the factory coils back on. The idle has gotten better but is still alittle rough. I just wanted to pass this along, Accel Super Coils for the 4.6/5.4 (coil on plug) Suck and if I saw them laying in the middle of the road I wouldent run them over!!!! Any and all feedback is appreciated.

 

Hi.

You shot the wrong guy

It's the plugs, not the coils.

Do a search for info on how crappy Bosch plugs are in the modular motors.

Use Motorcraft or Denso Iridiums with those coils & see how it goes.

Cheers
Bubba

 

One of my accel coil packs when after 7000 miles I was pissed. I put the orginal pack back in. Runs great now.

 

yeh ive heard of some people having them go out prematurely.. MSD are worse thats why they nicknamed em might suddenly die. but my accel's have lasted about 20K now.

 

i put on a set of granatelli COP the other day. one broke after 3 days use. coincidentally it broke at the same time I installed under drive pulleys. man, I had a bad weekend.
But yeah my egine aint the same it used to be. I don't know what to do eccept buy new plugs and coils??? I had E3 spark plugs. maybe E3 plugs and granatelli coils are incompatible?

 

I appreciate the input guys!! I wanted to get some more power out of my truck but sadley foung the coils werent the answer, so I already have a K&N Cold Air Intake, Flowmaster Muffler, BBK Power Plus 75mm Throttle Body, and am waiting for mt Powerdyne Throttle Body Spacer to arrive. My next mod is going to be a duel electric fan set up. (of course I still need to get it to idle first lol) But I guess its all part of hot rodin!!!!

 

I am in the middle of igniton investigations and have already found information about this system and what it is all about.
Some of what I have discovered will be met with rejection until it settles in and is explained in more detail.
Some of you are falling into your problems due to lack of knowledge about the coils and plugs you use.
A first hint is that BOSCH plugs are not the culprits many think they are.
They are being used in a wrong combination application and when problems arise using them, the plugs are blamed for the whole failure.
Right at this time I am running BOSCH plugs with stock coils and have no problems because I have selected them for a technical reason yet to be dicussed until I am done with the testing and can be sure of my findings.
After all Bosch does supply FORD with parts on an OEM basis so don't be to quick to condem their plugs until you are sure you have and understand more information.
Sometimes things arn't as they first appear.
The COP engines are very specific on the parts used and how the PCM monitors there operation, and how the problems affect the total operation. Therein lies the biggest problem.
More to come.

 

Coils are never the answer to getting more power. They don't make power by themselves.
If the ignition was operating perfect, there is no gains from aftermarket coils.
Almost 100% of people don't have any knowledge of this COP system, it's operation, limitations and what problems they can get into by making these changes based only on presumption, until they get into it and find out, as you did.
Then the plugs are blamed, the coils are blamed when the changes are almost qaurrenteed to cause failure more than half the time unless your lucky.
The subject is large enough to fill a small book with info on what seems like a simple thing to most people.
Breifly the coils have a certain amount of secondary resistance.
If plugs are used that have more than a certain max center electrode resistance, problems of short plug life and failure are close at hand and cause the condemnation of the plug make and type that they don't deserve.
Also remenber that he plugs are contained in a small space and sealed up.
The PCM is set up to monitor the ignition functions and can detect these things that were formally never a problem in other engine/ignition designs.
This is where people get into trouble. There is little room to go outside limits and get away with it on these COP engines.
Use your stock coils and spec plugs or plugs that have the same center resustance range and you will run fine unless there is some other fault like the boots, wire etc.

 

Blue's right! However, I don't agree with his percentage pertaining to COP knowledge amongst members here. I think allot of us kick back and let you handle it, you do a good job.
I can't believe all the mixing and matching here, BOCH plugs ? Accels , Granatelli's - Listen , there great products but not for these motors and will compromise performance. There's all kinds of info in here , try the search bar at the top of the page - just type in a topic .

 

Not to argue the point but I don't see any extended knowledge of this yet on this forum about COP operation, plug relationships and what the system could do under certain conditions.
I'm sure there are some but until they come forth I don't know who they are.
On hi output coils; It's not fine to apply higher voltage to plugs that can't fire the gaps when the voltage is dropped accross the plugs' center resistance that may be to high.
It has to go somwhere, it doesn't stay in the coil, so in the plug well the spark can punch thru the boot to the head or go to the plug body, then you have a fault not just with the plug but also the boot.
Then look at the moon wondering what happened and begin to place blame on the parts when it should be taken by the person who made the changes.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to talk tough. This is who I am..very scientific about things along with considerable age and experience.

 

Some basics, fyi

There can be no voltage drop if there is no current flow.

Unless there are other extenuating circumstances, like cracked/faulty boots, no/little dielectric grease, cracked plug body, faulty coil etc, the spark will not likely do anything but dissipate as heat, if it can't actually fire the gap. The coil, being an inductor, does store energy, & without a path, dissipate that energy as heat.

If the gap is not completely out of spec - way past 0.050 or so, then the internal spark plug resistance is a very small percentage of the resistance of that air gap. Simple ohms law will show that the majority of the voltage drop occurs over the gap.

Misfires are still the result.

I do agree it is designed as a system to acheive optimum operation, given all parts in good condition & within the specs as designed, over most normal modes of operation. Once you start modding, or designed operational specs are exceeded - different story. Boost, extremely high humidity, etc can all cause problems.

Bosch plugs do seem to have higher internal resistance; Denso's are lower, but Denso's also require approx 5K less voltage to fire over the same gap given their tip design & metallurgy. Motorcrafts are also relatively high - between the Bosch & Denso. There's also the COP connector resistance to consider.

Granatelli hi-V coils can potentially cause driver failure in the PCM. The only way to get more voltage out of a coil is to increase the primary-to-secondary winding ratio. This also means requiring more primary current to drive them - that energy has to come from somewhere. The higher primary draw can also cause wierd problems with voltage spikes in the PCM - you typically need to add a filter capacitor to the PCM supply lines as close to the box as possible to minimize the 'ringing' that is induced in the dc voltage supply.

Remember also that the upper threshold of the actual voltage is dictated by the physical spark gap - once the spark has begun, no further voltage rise occurs. So a gap that can routinely fire at 30K will not see any more voltage across it, regardless of what the coil can supply - the resultant energy may make the spark 'fatter'.

It's interesting to note these ignitions are multi-spark (not like the old CD-I 'big-bang/fast spark' units of old ). So not all their energy is released in one shot - there are several very rapid/closely spaced pulses, which prolongs the 'dwell' and help combustion.

Before Delphi went t^ts-up, they had some intriguing designs using the same basic technology, where the iginition could measure the gap resistance between firings, feed that info back to the PCM and interpret that data to derive the presence/absence of incipient spark knock. Essentially providing a knock sensor for every cylinder, without the need or limitations of a block-mounted acoustic sensor, which is far less ideal. There is some debate on just what else is in our systems that offers some sort of feedback of what is happening, over and above the misfire algorithms. I haven't found anything yet, but apparently there is something else being monitored.

Harley uses this knock-sensing system ( for 2 cylinders ) on some of their bikes - V-Rod is one of them. Hell of a motor, just a chitty chassis.

Above is just IMHO & informational - no arguments intended, okay ??? No rubbing, and not a quote in sight

Cheers
Bubba

 

i just installed new accel coils (4 post type) on my 99 f 150 am all i have gotten so far is better idle and smoother acceleration im very impressed with them so far waiting on this tank to run out since i just filled i up the day before to see the gains on mpg.. might also be operator error ... most people think they know whats goin on .. . like shadetree machanics that dont have a shade tree to work under... i wouldnt blam it on the parts..

 

mgd,
I fully agree with you and need to add one point.
If the gap or the "space in that gap" meets conditions such as very lean mix conditions that present very difficult ionization, then the spark plug center resistance will play a (larger part) in the total series resistance.
The center resistance can go open or rise, creating much the same for final results.
The spark will still happen and attempt to find it's path to complete it's circuit since the air in the plug well will ionize much better that accross the gap.
This is how the boot and even coil distruction can take place and missing occurrs with raw fuel finding it's way to the converter etc.
This is also the basis of waisted spark operation where two plugs share the same coil and still fire the cylinder under pressure with the other cylinder offering the higher resistance. The reistances offered at the gaps go back and forth making it possible for that type of design to work.
This is why I had stated there is more to this than meets the eye when parts are mixed and the system is altered.

 

i lost 1mpg with mine.. but i got low resistance 40ohm MSD wires also.. so im burning lots more fuel.. makes more power but uses more fuel.

 

trip from oklahoma city to tulsa to a gun show and driving around town in tulsa and back home round trip 282.5 miles took 17.39 gal.. gave me an average of 16.2 mph driving in 30-50 mph winds driving speed of 80-85mph along turnpike which is interstate road... so theres proof that the accels coil packs give gain.. even in strong wind.. before i got bout 13 if i was lucky... so impressed with the gain