Coils and ignitors in USA/Canada

[jsmcortina]

With manual updates currently underway, please could people post up their suggestions for coils and ignitors (and connectors) available within the USA/Canada market.

James

[walterclark1]

I have been using the ign-4 coil and a pair of BIP373 from DIYAutotune with great success. They also carry the coils connector.

[seishuku]

ISL9V3040P3
They don't current limit like BIP, at least I don't think they do... But it's a good device, cheap (digikey lists them at $2/pc)

Edit:
Oh, and my current coils are wasted spark coils from a Hyundai Tiburon, normally sold on a bracket with a small harness... Also available in 6 cylinder.
They're made by Denso as well.

[prof315]

In general I source coils for my installs from either DIYAutotune or the local salvage yard. Heres a list of the ones I have found to work well with standard spark mods (BIP 373 or quadspark for dumb coils, MS3X drivers or standard logic circuits from the MS/Extra manuals for smart coils).

Dumb coils: My personal favorite is the GM twin tower DIS coil packs. I grab the entire assembly, coils, module, and mounting bracket along with connector pigtails and modify the module as described here: http://www.diyautotune.com/diysotm/diysotm_2009-12.html. They are available in 4, 6, and 8 cylinder configurations. 4 cylinder assemblies can be found on Chevy Cavaliers, S10, S15 Pickup trucks and Pontiac Sunfires with 2.2L (mostly VIN 4) engines from 2000 to 2004. 6 cylinder assemblies are readily found on any 2.8L, 3.1L, or 3.4L GM engine from the early 90's through mid 2000s. 8 cylinder assemblies are found on Northstar engines through the mid 2000s. The 2.4L Chrysler 4 cylinder (Neon and other models) also has a decent 4 cylinder dumb waste spark coil and the Chrysler 3.3/3.8L motor in the minivans has a decent 6 cylinder coil. Same with Ford 4 and 6 cylinder waste spark coils. All of these are easy to find at the local junkyard or U-pull.

Smart coils: Top of the list has to be the GM LS series coils. They are getting a little harder to find due to popularity but still can't be beat. For easy wiring grab them with the sub harness and both sides of the sub harness connector.

I have found a number of decent smart pencil coils, Denso makes most of them and they can be found in Hondas and Toyotas (possibly others makes as well). GM also has a number of smart pencil coils that work well too. Look for newer Northstar engines (2005 and up) as well as the newer (07? and up) Ecotec 4 cylinder and 3.6/3.9L V6s. Avoid the ones in Cadillac CTS 6 cylinder engines as they seem to have a high failure rate.

[BritishV8]

I'm guessing you probably already know a lot about the various LSx coils... What info about them would have been helpful to me when I was researching coils? I was looking for credible/objective analysis of the performance difference between them. As for making them work... I used two Chevy sub-harnesses, but I taped them together to make one harness with an eight-way connector for the eight trigger leads and a three-way for the power and grounds. Each original sub-harness uses an eight-way connector, but with one cavity plugged. The male version of that connector WITHOUT plug is 12047931 and the female version without plug is 12047937. PCS is a good source. (~$5 for parts. ~$5 for shipping.)

Coil box cover lifted off to show reworked wiring. New connectors appear in the bottom righthand corner...

(I'm thinking of making more of these coil boxes. Send me a message if you're interested in buying one.)

I thought hard about using Suzuki coils. They can be lined-up neatly in rows along the valve covers of some V8s, eliminating the need for spark plug wires. They were discussed at length in this thread, including photos, part numbers, pin-outs, etc.: http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?6,39986

[JoseMiguel]

I think that the Neon coilpack (dumb) is one of the best working, most reliable coils I have found...

they are also very cheap (new and used) and can be found easily.

This is a great thread @ neons.org in which a guy tested different dwell settings using that coil

http://forums.neons.org/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=299935

[nismoautoxr]

http://www.tnaautoparts.com/ignition-coil.html

pretty much all Suzuki cars and Grand Vitaras from 99 to 2006 used this coil. Ignitors are built in and they are found on USDM models. Never saw a failure on one of them in the 5 years I worked in Suzuki Service. Takes the same connector as USDM Nissan Maximas with the 3.0 liter. Boots are removable and customizable.