Last week, Ninos_Maxima started a thread about cleaning coil packs. As usual, I was pretty skeptical, but since I had been planning on replacing my plugs this past weekend, I decided to give it a shot. Wow, a difference, even my passengers have noticed. The only thing they ever notice is noises "Hey what's making that sound?".

So just to make sure that I wasn't fooling myself, I first put the new plugs in without any cleaning. Not a whole lot of difference, since the old plugs still had some decent life left. I drove around for two days with just the new plugs. Then I tried cleaning just the contact points, using Q-tips and metal polish. No noticable difference. Then I thoroughly cleaned the coils, and even though they looked fairly clean, there was more than enough tarnish on them to leave my white cloth almost black.

*TIP*, when cleaning off the metal polish, moisten your cleaning cloth with some carb/throttle body cleaner, this really helps get things clean. You'll want to get all of the polish off, which has a tendancy to get lodged between coils.

Anyways, the coils now look like they're chromed. I put everything back together and that's when I noticed a real difference. The engine revs so much smoother now, and it pulls harder all through the rpm range. It even sounds better! I had one friend in the car who asked what new mod I'd performed, since he's pretty familiar with my car and it's history. I told him and he just couldn't believe it. I'm still amazed. I don't really know if this actually fixes any of the failing coil issues, but it has, without a doubt, helped even my properly functioning coils.

I think it would be interesting to measure the electrical flow (including the resistance and consistancy of the flow) of the average uncleaned coil vs a newly cleaned and polished coil, but unfortunately, I don't have the equipment. I'm no expert on electrical stuff, so if that last sentence doesn't make any sense, you'll have to excuse me.

 

I tried it too and did not notice any great fell about it...I still have a problem with my coilpacks....can'T find wich one is bad and I'm really pissed off about it...even the dealer can't tell me....

 

i have 8 used but working coil packs if you wanna buy some

 

Is there any way to tell?!

 

yes, you just need an ohmeter to test them. its in the how tos, just scroll down a bit and youll see it. also you might want to pick up a haynes manual; all this kind of stuff is in there.

 

Yeah but I'm tried using the OHM meter, and according to a few others that've posted on here, results have been inconclusive.

 

well if your not throwing a misfire code there is a good chance your problem can lie elsewhere.......to be honest with you the coil packs get blamed for a lot of problems that they dont cause

 

I just pulled my front coil packs out to see how they look… how would you go about cleaning these?

rocco5446 you said yours look like they have been chromed? Mine are all black and what looks to be plastic?

What part and how did you clean these?

ohh and do you have the link to Ninos_Maxima thread about the cleaning?

Thanks

-aPeG

 

Apeg, Here you go.

http://www.forum.maxima.org/showthre...clean+coilpack

 

Thanx Max96GLE

Okay just did the cleaning on one of the front coil packs but I am still drawing a blank when rocco5446 said he cleaned to a chromed finish?

When I took the 2 rubber parts off the big spring came out and it exposed a small little mettle contact that the spring was touching @ the base of the coil. I did the q-tip bit and cleaned it out. Is that what you guys are doing in the cleaning or am I missing a step?

Thanks again

-aPeG