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Got a 1301, sparks plug issue.. etc

4K views 10 replies 5 participants last post by  sleepe 
#1 ·
I got a 1301, meaning cylinder #1 is misfiring. I took a peek and found
the coil pack bolt was nearly completely unscrewed. The coil pack was popping out and a wire on the coil pack harness was severed. It must have frayed on the white insulator as the coil pack moved about due to the loose screw. The shop that installed the new head is to blame here.
I pulled the plug and it was drenched in copper anti-seize and dripping wet.
Could this just be an overuse of anti-seize or fuel....what? Two of the other four plugs were similarly dripping with liquid/ant-seize. (3 total) The fourth had a normal amount of anti-seize and was not wet.
I peered down through the spark plug tube at each cylinder head and 3 out of 4 appeared "wet". It this normal?
What is the order of cylinders from left to right when the error codes refer to specific cylinders? For example, code 1301 refers to cylinder #1 and 1302 refers to cylinder #2.
What is the easiest option to fix the sheared wire? It break is directly at the harness.

-Rob

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#2 ·
someone had the same issue with loose bolt and broken wire a few days ago.

Wet with what? Just clean the coils and use dielectric grease and reinstall them. Since you're there, might as well pop out the sparks and check them out.
 
#3 ·
You can repair the severed wire with a good solder joint, heat shrink tubing and some dielectric grease. I would do that first. How many miles are on the engine with the current spark plugs? Plugs have changed a lot in the last few years, and you can buy new ones at Spark plug, Spark plug wire, spark plug gap, spark plug cross reference and ignition wires at Sparkplugs.com for a big discount. I'd get four new plugs, wipe down all four coil packs with dielectric grease, install the plugs carefully, check the wiring on all the coil packs and repair as needed. Then reinstall everything, reset the CEL and see what happens. When I bought my car, I replaced all the plugs (at 10,000 miles) because they were already four years old. My car runs much better with cleaned up coil packs, fresh plugs and carefully checked wires. Also, remember to use premium unleaded fuel and maybe have the dealer flash your ECU to the latest firmware.

Good luck, let us know what happens once you fix the severed wire and get things back together. FYI, don't just twist the wires together and wrap with tape. Get a good soldering gun, make a nice physical and electrical connection and use proper heat resistant tape or tubing on the connection. It wouldn't hurt to use a little extra in the spot that wore through just to keep that from happening again.
 
#6 ·
...Plugs have changed a lot in the last few years, and you can buy new ones at Spark plug, Spark plug wire, spark plug gap, spark plug cross reference and ignition wires at Sparkplugs.com for a big discount. ...
Amazon is cheaper source of spark plugs. Based on a small sampling of compatible plugs for the Elise, sparkplugs.com was about 20% to 25% more expensive than Amazon for a set of 4 plugs.

I upgraded to the Denso IK20 plugs, and have been happy with them. They don't cost much more than the SK20R11 plugs specified in the owner's manual.
 
#5 ·
... p.s. Do you know which cylinder is #1? (is it 1234 or 4321?)
Cylinder numbering starts from the front of the engine, which is the end of the engine with the pully for the accessory belt. The rear of the engine is the flywheel end. On in-line engines, the numbering is simply in order, starting with #1 from the pully end.

On other engine types, like V6 and V8, #1 is still from the pully end, but some engines number their cylinders in the order they are on the crankshaft (which means one side is odd numbers and the other even), and other engines go down one side in order then go to the other side.
 
#8 ·
I bought a new connector and wired it successfully a few weeks ago and the codes disappeared, but they have returned now. The sparks are all new NGK's, the coils are all stock with 35,000 miles on them, and the injectors are RC engineering VF2 items.
The strange thing is that the car runs great even with the "returned" code 1301. I will swap coil #1 for coil #2 tomorrow, but if that does not lead me to the problem then it must be an injector issue right?

-Robert
 
#9 ·
new development>>>>need advice please.

I swapped coilpack #1 for coil #2 and got misfire code 0303 for cylinder #3.
What does this mean? I swapped the coils because I was getting misfire codes
for cylinder #1. I anticipated getting misfire codes for cylinder #2 indicating a bad coilpack, but that was not the case.
The car sounded like it was running on two cylinders for about 5-10 minutes after swapping the coilpacks, afterwards the engine "smoothed" out as if all the cylinders were firing, but some were still misfiring.
Does this mean one of my coil packs is bad? New oem spark plugs were installed 3 weeks ago torqued to spec. It is not bad gas because I've been getting misfire codes for cylinder #1 for about 2 months off and on. It could be bad injectors???
Should I buy new coilpacks and for which cylinder?
The Elise has a VF2 with 37000 miles

-Robert
 
#10 ·
Coil packs are $90 for four at the Toyota dealer. The fact that you swapped some and got different errors would lead me to think a coil pack or two are going bad. $90... I'd buy all four rather than trying to guess which one is which. Good luck, let us know what transpires!
 
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