In that forum, they talk about the "wasted spark". I'm confused with this as even in Coil Pack(CP) method, the packs are hooked together with 4 common wires (shown in the attached image). So even the CP's have a "wasted" spark. Two cylinders are always firing at the exact same time. That is, unless I'm missing something here.
Am I correct in this thinking? If there is an additional wasted spark, does it hurt, hinder, disrupt the normal operation of the engine, or cause reduced fuel economy? If not, does it help increase fuel economy? Is there more power to the wheels with a COP conversion?
The wasted spark occurs near the top of the exhaust stroke of one cylinder, while it's companion cylinder is near the top of compression. It's a truly wasted spark because the fuel/oxygen mix was spent two strokes earlier.
Factory COP and COP conversions are different. Mustangs that come with COP have 8 individual trigger wires, no wasted spark. COP conversions are simply a way to eliminate the packs and plug wires for aesthetics/simplicity using the original 4 wire computer and wiring. There really are no gains to it, and in fact because the COPs need to be wired in series, due to impedance, the spark will be somewhat weaker with a COP conversion than the coil packs or individually fired COPs. The spark is still more than enough for a NA engine but high boost may result in spark blow out.
The solution is to [easily] wire them in parallel to avoid any series losses. I did series wiring for safety's sake, but who's to say that it will hurt the coil pack drivers for sure? Only he who has a burnt PCM. So far, no one has come forth with actually trying parallel wiring and saying it does or doesn't work. Empirical evidence rules all. Damn I can't believe that was back in 2005. 12 Freakin years ago. I was ahead of my time :tongue:
I've never had any issues running COP in series, I'm just not sure I'd use them that way with boost(which I'm not into anyway) it would be interesting though to see how they'd do in parallel. In theory you'd be able to modify a stock COP engine harness and simply bridge the existing 1/6, 2/8, 3/5 and 4/7 wires together.
Course if they're weak(er?) in parallel then there's no benefit
A few years ago I read an article where aside from the dwell time being limited, current is also limited by the pcm. Perhaps there won't be any ill consequences like there would be in a simplistic circuit where current draw is doubled with half the normal impedance. Try it out. Maybe it's the way to maximize the power available for boosted applications.
Thanks guitar_maestro for adding in on the conversation. If I had a second setup, I'd try the parallel wiring and give it a shot to see what happens. But, being my dd, I don't think i'll be trying that
I think over all for the time being I'm going to stick with the stock wiring. I was hoping for a better burn and get more hp or efficiency. But if there's no real discernible difference between the two setups, I'll just leave it as is.
I know there is benefit putting in the other computer, but I'm not going to do that swap. A bit outta my leak for now.
There are now connector kits available on amazon or ebay to make the cop conversion plug and play. I've since done some bench testing, and the cop coils fire just fine at 12k. and 200psi, which is about 15 pounds of boost.
They're really pretty easy to make following the instructions in the link in the first post. Yeah they make harnesses that plug and play but that means you have a pair of bulky inline connectors and a harness on top of a harness, you may as well have plug wires lol
Looking at how this hooks up, I don't see how those wires arent screaming rf interference. The plug wire us suppressive, these lead in wires are 18awg.
Plug wires have thousands of volts going through them, DIS/COP lead wires have 12 volts. Even being in series with this conversion you’re only bridging the primary windings, the high voltage secondary windings are still only connected to the plugs
I'm guessing it's the ramp, vs the back edge. The back edge of that ramp kicks the hv off. So yeah, the voltage, and the sharpness of it are the rf source. The driver is only changing a few volts. It operates on the current storing energy in the magnetic field, then collapsing it suddenly.
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
TCCoA Forums
1.5M posts
26.8K members
Since 2002
A forum community dedicated to Ford Thunderbird, Mercury Cougar and Lincoln Mark owners and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about performance, modifications, troubleshooting, maintenance, and more!