fonetico

Oh joyous tidings! The coil's about 6 months old.

Thanks anyway for putting me out of my misery. There's nothing worse than not knowing why.

Mrmerlin

OR get another early coil wire thats less expensive,
NOTE you should inspect the other coil to verify that it is also a deep hole version or the stud version.
Roger sells new single coil wires.

NOTE if you have bought the good Beru ignition wire set then it comes with both early and late coil wires,
so there might be someone with 2 late coil wires they cant use

fonetico

Can I just clarify this? I'm slightly confused here. Am I right in assuming the coil is the wrong one because it belongs to an earlier model?

Bearing in mind that I regularly buy these parts from Porsche Spares here in London and they have on several occasions inspected the car to establish exactly what model it is, it's annoying I've not been given the appropriate parts!

So which coil is relevant for a '90 S4? Deep hole or stud?

Sorry to be so dim.

fonetico

Forgot to ask. If I use the other version of the HT wire, will it be compatible with the distributor cap?

Lizard928

That is correct. The coil you have is for 1984 (ROW) thru 1988.
1989 has the stud in the coil.

If you change just the lead (or just the end of the wire) it will work fine.

fonetico

Much obliged.

Lizard928

Glyn,
My mother is headed out to England on the 30th (Bristol), and I could send a good end with her if you wish to collect it.

Just unthread the old end, and thread on the new one

fonetico

Colin,
Very kind of you but, unfortunately, Bristol's not all that close to me.

Amazingly, I've managed to unearth the original coil. I'm now convinced the fault has always been the HT lead and tomorrow I'll reinstall the old coil with a new lead and see what happens.

I'll keep you posted.