Originally Posted by
rogue13_13
POSSIBLE RESOLUTION, but won't know till Wednesday.
I took my distributor apart piece by piece to clean and look for bad connections. While the coil was out, I decided to test it again... and even though it tested fine earlier, it is testing horribly now.
Primary Resistance - 1.0 - 1.1 ohms ... about 10% higher than spec
Secondary Resistance - 7000 - 8000 ohms ... more than 50% lower than spec.
Also: I read a very interesting article that claimed the actual ohm values are not what are important, but the ration between them. On a "spec coil", the ratio would be ~16,000 (13,000 / .8) and on my coil the ratio is less than 8000 (8000/1.1). Very interesting stuff.
Hopefully I will have good news when the parts come Wednesday.
I don't think (could be wrong) that the coil was causing the misfiring, more likely the condition of the cap and/or rotor or the connections on the coil or ignitor. Why the coil failed after you cleaned things up could have been a total coincidence, or directly related, but unless you cranked it over several times in a row w/ the cap off (potentially overheating the coil), it would probably have failed soon anyway.
Glad you got it fixed :goodjob: and just to clarify, you actually got a reading of 1.1 ohms on the primary (AtoB) test on your old coil? If so, I'm curious if the new one would, or did, read the same.
When the coil on my civic crapped out (also just after cleaning cap, rotor and connections), the bad coil gave a secondary winding resistance of ~8000 also. But both the bad and good (tested several) coils always gave ~.7 on the primary.