Coil pack failure, how quickly can it occur?

[powerstans]

Having just done an engine swap in my Westfield took it out for its first outing yesterday eve, on last bit home after giving it some, the engine suddenly ran very rough and wouldn't idle. It also smelled of petrol, but no smoke from exhaust.

Now hoping its not the worst case of catastrophic failure, could the coil pack have packed up under load causing the loss of two cylinders that quickly?

The coil pack, leads and spark plugs are all the ones that came with the second hand engine and although I gave them a quick check I didnt give them a full examination?
Clinging on to straws here!

[andyiley]

Could be coil pack.

Could also be injectors I would have thought.

Maybe a bit more investigation would give you & us more to go on.

[stevieturbo]

powerstans said:

Having just done an engine swap in my Westfield took it out for its first outing yesterday eve, on last bit home after giving it some, the engine suddenly ran very rough and wouldn't idle. It also smelled of petrol, but no smoke from exhaust.

Now hoping its not the worst case of catastrophic failure, could the coil pack have packed up under load causing the loss of two cylinders that quickly?

The coil pack, leads and spark plugs are all the ones that came with the second hand engine and although I gave them a quick check I didnt give them a full examination?
Clinging on to straws here!

Well it sounds like the coil pack isnt brand new ? So yes it could fail that quickly...however quickly that is.

What ecu etc is it running ? has it ever ran successfully before you changed the engine ?
ie is all wiring and other electrical components proven reliable in your car ? Or is that new/used too ?

Really...there could be plenty of reasons for problems....and we dont yet know the exact problem to speculate.

[powerstans]

Thanks for the replies.

I swapped engines as the old one was smoking suggesting problems with the rings, replacement engine is secondhand but the same type (zetec 2.0 Silvertop).

Anyway grabbed the coil pack, spark plugs and leads of the old engine last night and swapped them over, result is a properly running engine. Answering my own query I guess.

Wasted spark coil meant I lost two cylinders at once!