smoke from coil packs

[White Comet]

tried searching and found nothing so here it goes. i recently made a few changes to my sr20 blacktop, while the car was down for a while i cleaned up the wiring harness (cut out loose plugs and rebundled) and repainted the valve cover (previous owner painted it blue) before all this the car had the wiring professionally done by hybridynamics. the car ran fine and was very reliable except it has always ideled a little high. now that everything is done the car starts up and runs but after a few minutes starts smoke started pouring from under the spark plug cover. i took the cover off and the coil pack of spark plug one started to melt. it was as though there was moisture in the gasket on the coil pack that seals it against the valve cover. i cleaned this up and it didn't do it for days but not it did it agian. i havent had time to remove the cover to see which coil pack it is coming from but its the same as last time. any ideas as to what causes this? the coil packs being exposed while i painted? something else i didnt think of? shuoldnt make a difference but i also installed a GReddy profec b boost controller and water temp gauge. any help is greatly appreciated. thank you

[White Comet]

nobody has run into this b4, no ideas?

[IanS]

sounds like somthing is shorting out and over amping the coils

[SpeedRacer1]

Or paint burning off...

[White Comet]

its def not paint, the smoking is only from coil pack on and is melting the plug from the coil pack to the wires, what could have been changed thats over amping it?

[Steve Lloyd]

bad/missing ground. Did you reattach the ground that plugs onto the firewall?? Is tyhe coil pack plug still grounded to the head?? The coil could be trying to find a ground..........

[White Comet]

hmmm, good call, i'll check that today. anybody have any pics of how its supposed to be grounded? thank you all very much

[FSUDrifter]

should be a little wire with a connector on the coilpack harness, just do it to the firewall.

[Steve Lloyd]

the coilpack harness stock bolts to the head and then a braided wire goes from the head to the firewall. The ground bolt is on the back and VERY hard to get to, so like FSUDrifter said, just go from the plug straight to the firewall.

[White Comet]

where exactly is the wire with the connector, one for each pack or one near the firewall for all, thanks

[Steve Lloyd]

there is only one ground wire and it's on the coilpack side of the harness. The big grey plug that all the coilpack go to, there is a black wire in that plug that goes to a boly on the back of the head. unplug the connector on check the continuity of the black wire to ground.These are the best pics I could get. You can see the braided wire to the firewall, the bolt on the back of the head, and the coilpack plug.




Modified by Steve Lloyd at 9:36 AM 5/18/2007

[White Comet]

just what i was looking for. thank you very much

[FSUDrifter]

your coilpacks definitely need a good ground, but another thing you could check is make sure you have all 4 of the spark plug gaskets, one of them could have fallen off when you had the vc off.

[NSRsheets]

Make sure the coilpacks are all the way on the spark pluggs. It sounds like you maybe getting and arc and melting the coil pack.

[FSUDrifter]

i have 5 sr coilpacks sitting in my garage if anyone needs one by the way [email protected]