Thread: Burned ignition Coil Wire

Hey Guys, my car was feeling real sluggish at times, only at take offs. Power would cut off as well, like if the throttle body Was STUCK CLOSED and wouldn't accelerate. and it would sputter for a second and then go. Kind of Dangerous on a Turning intersection..

But anywho, poped under the hood, to see a spark coming from the throttle cable and valve cover. My friend was brave enough to touch all the wires and when he touched the COIL wire, Quickly JUMPED BACK from a SHOCK it gave him.

Turned off the car, pulled the Wire, and it was BURNT to Hell.. Extra Crispy!!

?? Now i'm SURE this is what was causing the Sputtering and NO acceleration issues, but my question is, WHAT CAUSED THIS TO HAPPEN??

Possibly the TIMING ADVANCE?? It is set at 18* or 19* if i'm not mistaken.

Stock DE Maff, ECU and VE injectors.

I'll Post some Pix to show you guys what i'm talking about.

Anyone??

Which coil wire? The high tension wire from the coil to the distributor? One of the spark plug wires? The engine harness wire to the coil itself? What?

Not sure if I'm understanding exactly what you're saying but is sounds like you had a damaged ignition wire and the current left the wire and arced between the metal throttle cable and the valve cover. Arcing is not good and burns shit up for sure. Advanced ignition timing wouldn't do that. However if you were not carrying the full electrical current to the spark plug then this would cause poor performance for sure. My best guess. But a main ignition wire that is damaged before the distributor might cause poor overall performance.

Be more specific!!

Seen it many times. Not just on SR's but many different cars. You will see arching of the spark to the valve cover or motor or whatever is nearby and yes it will cause very very poor performance and misfires and hesitation. Best bet is to replace all the plug wires and coil wire. If one is bad the others are surely right behind.

Sorry guys, but thanks for the response.

Yes the "spark plug wire" that goes to the ignition coil and Distributor. The end that goes into the Coil was TOAST. All the other wires looked good or ok.

Now my question is, what can cause this??

I've already ordered a set of New NGK Wires.

That can be caused by the coil wire backing out of the socket. Usually it pops off when this happens, but if it is held in there strongly enough the ignition spark will jump the gap there, before going on to jump the gap in the plug. So if the connection there is not good for some reason, instead of getting no spark at all, there is plenty of voltage to jump a small gap (that's what the ignition coil is good at) so the gap is jumped creating a lot of heat at that point, and then the electricity flows on to the spark plug and jumps that gap.

Shit be sparkin' yo. Sparks be hot 'n' shit.

Ben, what would your Suggestion on Fixing this issue be?? Replace all wires, of course..

Clean up the contact socket on the coil as best you can to get a good contact.
Replace at least that one high voltage wire. When you do that, spread the metal prongs out a bit on the end of the wire so it locks really well into the coil socket as best it can.

That should do it.