Griffith Ignition coil saga.

Griffith Ignition coil saga.

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halcyongriff500

Original Poster:

66 posts

249 months

Thursday 2nd July 2015
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My 2000 Griffith expired on our return from the Spa Classic, failing to e-start at a motorway service area between Brussels and Ostend. The Belgium recovery chap diagnosed a failed ignition coil - unobtainable over a B/H w/e but that's another story as was our journey home.
My local motor factors came up with an Intermotor 11410 and mobility was restored. We have since covered around 600 miles on the Intermotor coil with no problems.
However, I figured that a Bosch coil would be better long-term solution and after some research fitted a Bosch PRC6574 with the intention of retaining the Intermotor coil as a spare. Unfortunately, the engine refused to fire with the new Bosch coil! The supplier said this was due to it being incorrect for my Lucas ignition system, as the coils are not interchangeable and incompatible between the Lucas and Bosch systems.
Further research came up with a Lucas DLB198, again the engine wouldn't fire. I replaced the Intermotor coil, it fired-up momentarily but died after a few seconds and wouldn't re-start. A case of If it ain't broke...?
After spending hours trying many different things, including disconnecting/re-connecting the battery to reset the ECU/immobilizer, as a long-shot I separated the connector to the module on the distributor, gave it a squirt of WD40 and hey presto my Griff is restored back to life.
But I'm still not happy! I don't feel that the real cause has been identified so don't trust the car, and wonder if the wiring to the module may be suspect. Nor am I 100% sure that the coils tried, are correct as application charts only list the 4.0 litre pre-serp cars. The Intermotor 11410 seems to get very hot [maybe the original coil did too but I never felt that] as do the plug HT extensions.
Do the pre and post serp cars have different ignition systems requiring different coils? Or am I likely to have a wiring fault?

blitzracing

6,387 posts

219 months

Friday 3rd July 2015
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The Lucas system uses a "High energy coil", with a very low primary resistance. This allows it to build its magnetic field very quickly, so it can cope with the massive demand of feeding 8 cylinders at up to 6000 plus RPM. The coil can be Lucas or Bosch, but it does need to be the low resistance type- ie the correct part number. From memory the primary resistance should be around 2 ohms if the coil is the correct type.

fausTVR

1,442 posts

149 months

Friday 3rd July 2015
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OP, just had look through my receipts and found my new Bosch coil matches your part no. and works perfectly on my serp 5 ltr Chim. I was wondering if it may be your ignition amp that's failed instead?

Hard to tell if things get hot under the bonnet as everything get baked together I would say.