Difference in Coil Plugs - What are they

[Sudesh]

I've always wonder this and cant figure out what its is.

Why are front and rear marked differently? They look the same and fit the same?

Also with some recent talk on the UK forum, I noticed that the part number a Honda/Acura dealer uses on ebay for the coils is 30520-PR7-A33 which shows they are for 1995 to 2005 cars

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1995...arQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories#ht_557wt_736

Now if you look at 1991 to 1994 coils on the UK system anyway, the part number is 30520-PR7-A02, however that number has been superceeded to 30520-PR7-A03, this number is also shared with 1995 to 1999 cars! Which to me means the coils on 1991 to 1999 are now the same.

Then there is a change in 2000 to the part number of one listed above by the ebay guys. So its strange they list it as 1995 to 2005???

The other diffference I noticed is the TC number after the coil.

1991 to 1999 is TC-15A
2000 to 2005 is TC-22A

So what is the real difference? between any of the above?

 

[Briank]

I know the OBDII cars (95 and up) have different coils. They have 3 pin connectors, I assume for missfire detection.

 

[Sudesh]

Thanks for reply Brian. Still find it strange though that, 30520-PR7-A03 which in the UK as far as I can tell is for cars from 1991 to 1999!

Is the connector the same just minus a pin? Which would mean the same coil can be used on all cars?

 

[Briank]

I think the UK cars did not have OBDII until later. The connector 2pin connector will not work in a 3 pin coil.

 

[cmc140]

The newer coils are far less expensive than the old coils. Would it be possible to convert an OBDI car to use OBDII coils by changing the engine harness connectors? Also is there a difference in coils between 3.0 and 3.2 engines?

 

[Briank]

The newer coils are far less expensive than the old coils. Would it be possible to convert an OBDI car to use OBDII coils by changing the engine harness connectors? Also is there a difference in coils between 3.0 and 3.2 engines?

Since the coils almost never fail converting is not worth the effort.

 

[cmc140]

I just looked up the price on the new coils and they are now more expensive than the older coils. So it definitely isn't worth messing around with converting. I was thinking of replacing my coils before having my car tuned this spring. I'm going to be running a Whipple 2.3 SC and thought it might be a good precautionary step. Commonly referred to as the "might as wells". I'd hate to have an intermittent issue pop up with my 20 year old coil packs, running a high boost SC.

Out of curiosity do you happen to know if the front and rear coils are interchangeable?

Thanks,
Chris

 

[rsevo6]

Since the coils almost never fail converting is not worth the effort.

Have to disagree with that Brian (them almost never failing).
I had a ignition problem about 1,5 years ago on my 23K mls '98 CTSC NSX and while investigating the problem I came across quite a few incidents of coils failing. This also turned out to be the case with my car, 1 coil gone bad (while looking completely new, no rust whatsoever), so I wouldn't dare to say the coils hardly ever fail as my investigations showed otherwise.

The difference in coils between the US and EU lies in the fact that in the US the car changed to OBD2 in '95 while in Europe, this was done in '00/'01
Came across this problem when trying to source new '98 OBD2 coils in Europe and finding out the '98 EU spec had the old style coils. The EU model '00+ OBD2 coils were not available anywhere in EU and ordering them from Japan would take 6-10 weeks at that time.
I got my replacement set from a US Prime member who was offering a new OBD2 set for sale as he had wrongly bought them, but needing the old style instead.

Another ignition part failing is the igniter, this happend on my car too and when researching the problem, I found out this too was a part known to fail.