Still not happy with the way the engine feels or sounds, so I bought a set of plugs and went to change them today. Pulled the first coil and it looked like this:
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photo(12).JPG

No need to go any further. Ordered a new set from Pelican but will not arrive till next week. Bummer. On the bright side hopefully replacing the coils and plugs will restore the throttle response and overall feel of the engine after sitting for a year. I don't guess they've ever been changed so after 12 years and almost 90k I guess it's time...

 

Sandersd,

Quick question, are those pics from the coils on the driver's side?

Just curious, as the passenger's side were in good shape during my last spark plug change, I had to buy 3 new ones for the driver side......just like ur pictures or worse.....

 

Actually it is from the driver side. But I figure if one is bad the others can't be far behind. I don't want to have to keep going back and changing them one by one every time one goes bad so I'll just change them all.

 

Changed my plugs and coil packs before a road trip last August and i can tell you that before and after is very very noticeable.
I was at around 95000 miles before change.
Pete

 

Was it missfiring? If not, then it could be jsut the plugs. Good time to replace the coils though. Mine looked worst than those. One started to missfire in wet so I covered it in RTV, it re sealed it and has been working like a charm ever since.

 

What! No duct tape...

 

My dad would have used hot glue sticks, he tries to fix everything with it!

 

Feel/sound may be improved by new plugs/coils but the cracks visible in the pictures don’t mean that there’s something wrong w/them. I’ve seen worse looking coils work just fine.

 

Unless they are shorting out and not creating a spark, even when cracked they work just as well as a new one. The most likely reason people notice a performance improvement are because they change the plugs too. Now thise when they start to have a very large gap will decrease performance. However since most people change both, they think the coils made the difference too.

 

I think that at 93000 miles +, for the cost involved, why not be pro-active and change out the coil packs regardless!
Pete

 

My sentiments exactly.