Engine Drivetrain 2nd Gen S Most liked posts in thread: Okada/Ignition Projects Plasma Coil Packs Any Good?

OEM. Basma Ploosters and hotter-than-hell coilpacks are designed for one thing: separating suckers from their money.

 

Stick with OEM Coil, Plugs and Wires.

If they are good enough for a 400 hp race MINI they are good enough for you.

 

No direct experience, however, in all my years it seems that anything in the automotive realm that uses "plasma" as a descriptor is a product designed to remove money from wallets only.

 

I took my MSD off and went back to OEM as had been suggested by others. I think I might paint it Chili Red though, just for the go faster feeling I'm now lacking.

 

IIRC, from the discussions on an air-cooled VW list years ago, some guys took stock wires and the big 8.5 mm wires and cut them. It was found that the stock wire diameter was a couple og gauges down from the stock size. The fancy wires just have more insulation, and after all...bigger is better, right.

 

The people selling the fancy coil backs are still trying to milk the times when a hotter coil did do something. Back in the carburetor days.

 

Welp... In the sheet metal realm, itsa godsend....

Have a plasma cutting torch in the shop and itsa wonderful piece of equipment...

It'l cut through 3/8" thick mild steel with 120 volts and shop air like its butta....

 

There was tons of endless debates "back in the day" about this...
Some swore their cars idled better, somehow, or seemed faster....
But nobody could ever quantify WHAT they did....dyno's, etc all seemed inconclusive from what I remember...everything was well within the range off errors for all the tests done....
But some folks swore by them as their "special sauce"....
I always thought of it as a plceabo...

 

Stick with the OEM coil pack. You won't gain anything by switching except the potential for problems. As Dave pointed out the OEM items are more than capable to function in extreme conditions.

 

All you need is enough energy to jump the gap of the plug. The systems are self-regulating. You can have a 50,000 volt coil and if it only takes 25,000 volts to jump the gap, it only makes 25,000 volts. As things wear, the cylinder pressures go up, or the RPM go up you need more voltage. If things are working correctly the stock MINI ignition and most stock ignitions work fine.

 

I have them. I installed them the same time I did a walnut shell blasting service to the back of my intake valves. I'm 99% positive all the extra spunk my car had after that was due to the carbon cleaning, not the coil packs. But they sure look nice