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Yes that what they do when they are put of stock, they had a lot of issues and are basically redesigning and testing so it seems. Still waiting for mine, had one fail on first pull
A little education on ignition coils if you didn't know....
An ignition coil rated at 40,000 volts does not put out 40,000 volts all the time and probably never will in operation. It takes about 3,000 volts to jump the plug gap with the plug out of the cylinder head. In the cylinder head it is much different. Lean mixtures and high compression ratios make it difficult for the spark to jump the gap but on a modern car running at 14.7:1 AFR. most average only 7,000-15,000 volts under all conditions. These measurements can be measures on any car with an ignition oscilloscope. Something I have done literally thousands of times in my career.
A production cars ignition system is designed with a 60% voltage reserve. What that means is, if the ignition system requires up to 15,000 volts to jump the plug gap the coil maximum output needs to be 60% more than that to handle anything thrown at it. Most automotive ignition coils put out 40,000 volts average. Some of the early DIS systems were putting out 60,000 volts.
40,000-15,000=25,000
25,000/40,000=.625 That's a 62.5% reserve
Since we run a much richer A/F in PE mode the ignition system might take a max of 21,000 volts even under full boost and high RPM's. It's easier to jump the plug gap when you have a lot of fuel flowing between the gap.
With today's COP (coil on plug) ignitions, the coil has all kinds of time to reach full primary saturation before it is asked to fire again. GM HEI ignition coils were able to build and collapse 8 times faster than we require them to do today and still turn 7200 RPM without a misfire.
Cool stuff! I love a good explanation to things that I wonder about and don't fully understand. I have a dozen or so LNF/LDK coils laying around. I had thought at one point about using a spark gap tester and gradually increasing the gap testing each coil to try to sort out the strongest ones. Perhaps you can answer if that crudest of tests may have any merit, since I don't fully understand the field build/collapse process? I know any gains in misfire protection may be marginal at best, but couldn't hurt, right? Would love to know your take on that. And good point on the HEI coils.
I wouldn't increase the gap on a spark tester until they quit firing rather set it to 40kv and see if they pass. This type of coil was never designed for open circuit firing like coils with plug wires. When COP coils are installed they don't pull away from the plug leaving them open. The coils WILL find a ground somewhere and that means it will jump back into the primary winding leaving a hole to carbon track across in the future. It can also damage the electronics built into the coil.
Magnetic induction for ignition is when a strong magnetic field is built around a laminated Iron core by running current through a large primary winding of 100-150 turns of wire. That magnetic field passes through 20-40 thousand turns of super fine wire also wrapped around the core. When the current flow is cut the magnetic field collapses back through the secondary wiring instantly which is what creates the high voltage.
It's a step up transformer from 12v to 40+ thousand volts done through what is called turns ratio. The number of primary windings vs the number of secondary windings. There is more involved in high output coils than just having more turns of secondary windings but it is the major influence.
This is why you won't see me race out and purchase aftermarket coils. The pic below is showing the available voltage of Pontiac Vibe COP coils and they are already putting out 50,000 volts from the factory.
I just lost a red ZZP coil (mfg 5/16). HGT was mentioning it is of no benefit, however I am running larger gaps with more boost same copper plugs; maybe I am mis-conflating. Stock LE5 boosted engine at 18 psi and 11-11.5 AFR I was down to ~0.027" because blow out, where with my built LE5 at 25 psi and same AFR I never noticed blowout many pulls running ~0.032".
In the end, I cannot recommend buying them because if you lose a coil, I guess you need to buy a set of 4 to replace the bad one. I emailed ZZP to see if I can purchase one, we shall see.
i have the zzp lsj coils in 2 cars(lsj and l61) and was able to run a larger gap before having blow out. as a result of the larger gap my idle quality improved. been several year in my lsj with no issues, and i put them in my l61 this past spring, never had an issue.
i would say rated voltage is more of a marketing strategy, and not a proper way to shop for ignition products.
I think I missed the point, thanks for clarifying on the Voltage.
ZZP got back to me, in about 4 weeks they will take care of me very well, I'll follow up when it happens. I'll put the stockers back in and drop the gap. Keep your eyes peeled too if you're looking for stock.
Otherwise I was thinking about a 4-wire LS truck coil swap.
I think I missed the point, thanks for clarifying on the Voltage.
ZZP got back to me, in about 4 weeks they will take care of me very well, I'll follow up when it happens. I'll put the stockers back in and drop the gap. Keep your eyes peeled too if you're looking for stock.
Otherwise I was thinking about a 4-wire LS truck coil swap.
More info on the LS truck coil swap? I never heard of that
Swap the connectors, get the coils, run short plug wires. Its pretty straight forward, not sure what PN coils he used tho. They are pretty common to be used in the aftermarket as high power coils.
2002-2006 l61 ecotecs ran the compression sensed ignition system, and the module would send essentially what was a cam position signal to the ecm. back in the day people used to switch to the 2.2l ohv wasted spark coils and ignition module as the csi ignition functioned the same way. to make that work you needed a cam sync box, cant remember how all that worked, but i do know a friend ran that setup in his high compression nitrous l61 cavy.
the rest of the ecotec ignition systems are all typical gm coil on/near plug. they all use a 4 wire logic style coils, these have a built in ignitor and triggered with a 5v signal from the ecm. ive heard of people using different oem coils on different engines with no issues. the only real issues i know of with swapping coils on a gm is msd coils dont get along with factory computers on some of the ls engines. the car will run fine but it will set misfire codes like crazy. ive heard other aftermarket coils are just fine, something about the msd coils.
09-09-2017, 05:31 PM
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