coil pack or plug wire??
 

i have a 4.6 no-pi boat anchor in my 94 lincoln town car and it has 2 coils packs. a few times in the past couple weeks when i accelerate its kinda dogish and has like half the power it should first i was thinking maybe a clogged fuel filter (checked air cleaner and it still looks new), but the other day i had to jump a car and while i was under the hood i heard what sounded like a wire grounding out (zap-zap-zap) when i revved the motor but i didnt hear anything @ idle. it sounded like it was coming from the passenger side coil pack, so i looked at all the boots real closely and saw nothing.

today i go out there and spray water on the coil, start it up and rev it and i hear nothing - so i go to drive down the road and its sluggish off the line again. also, seems worse when the car is still cold for some reason, not that that makes much sense.

so my question is, can coil packs ground out internally and work intermittantly or is it always a cut and dry work or not work situation.

the wires say belden (napa) so i know they arent original, the car is 14 years old but only has like 60k miles on it so the wires cant possibly have too many miles on them.

RE: coil pack or plug wire??
 

is it misfiring or just being a dog?

RE: coil pack or plug wire??
 

I would almost throw my guess on a dirty/faulty MAF sensor if it doesnt have a miss....

RE: coil pack or plug wire??
 

yeah i wouldnt quite call it a miss, more like serious hesitation.... although i did hear it POP once out the exhaust

RE: coil pack or plug wire??
 

Has it thrown a SES light?

RE: coil pack or plug wire??
 

no, but then again i remember once way back i got a light and they couldnt pull a reading from the car, it was really wierd.

RE: coil pack or plug wire??
 

I would probably start by cleaning your MAF sensor, you can go to the store and get a can of "electronics cleaner". It should be in an aresol can.

RE: coil pack or plug wire??
 

How did your plug wire ends look? If you head the spark arcing then at least throw plugs, wires, and coil packs on. A dirty MAF sensor would not cause spark arcing.

RE: coil pack or plug wire??
 

True, but he said that he went out and sprayed water on it and started it, and it didnt do it. Plus the fact that he said it's worse when its cold out, arcing can and will occur at any temperature.

If the coil packs/wires/plugs were bad, he would have a definate miss, although I cant explain the "zap-zap-zap". His problem is more of a severe hesitation rather than a miss.

If your MAF sensor is dirty it will cause a severe hesitation, and when its cold it will be alot worse.

RE: coil pack or plug wire??
 

Spark arcing can be intermittent, too. I've seen it. If his MAF was dirty, a hesitation could occur, but will most likely have different problems such as a long crank time and an intermitten no start.