I lacquered the coil with special emphasis to try to get the lacquer down along the coils metal frame. I couldn’t find my TV high voltage sealer. I replaced the coil in cylinder 1 and took the test drive. The old problems were back so this coil can’t be fixed using the lacquer method but it sure looks pretty.
In another forum, someone explained how to remove the tube going from the coil to the spark plug and then clean the contact in the coil. A spring actually connects the coil to the spark plug. In his case his connections were dirty and his problems went away, mine stayed.
I also spend some time on a good coil to document the ohm readings for the primary and secondary winds. The service manual shows one switching transistor connected inside the coil on the primary side and a diode going to the spark plug on the secondary side. Because these devices are in series with the coil winding, you must use the proper + or – leads to get a proper reading. All the reading I made on the coil did not act like normal electronic circuits using the service manual schematic so I assuming that the coil has a lot more electronics in the coil then what is shown in the service manual. I will try to get the bad one apart to see if I am correct.
From Salzador <I have a 1998 I30 with 61,000 miles that I just bought. It was doing the same type of missing but ONLY when in gear>
That is exactly how my problem(s) started, first with the miss in gear and then the miss on hard acceleration with the blinking ENGINE LIGHT but no codes were set.
From Salzador <I took all the coils to autozone and they tested them and said all were fine.>
Did you see how they tested the coils? I’m convinced you can’t test coils with an ohm meter.
Well that’s about it. I think there is a bunch of bad coils out there OR the heat of the engine and design makes them bad. So I guess the prudent thing to do is buy a front version and a rear version and use the old swapping method and hope two don’t go bad at the same time.