Ignition Coils and Plugs Opinions, Thoughts, Suggestions

[Funmart6]

I got the plugs and coils changed over the weekend, so excited!!! My son and I changed the fronts when I got home from work Friday afternoon, showed him how to do it, and of course it was super easy. Saturday we changed the rears. I explained to my son that it really isn't all that difficult, it's just time consuming and you need to keep up with all the things you are taking apart. It took us about 3 hours to change the rears, we probably could've done the job quicker but we cleaned the intake and surge tank and re- wrapped the wiring harnesses and that took a little time. All in all the job went well, didn't break anything and I only came away with 2 small cuts on my fingers, lol. I've had the intake off before so, it was kind of fun remembering what to remove from the car body and engine, and I found old instructions on V8SHO.com that I had used many years ago as a refresher. We finished up the job just a little before sunset and then went for a drive. Man oh man, this baby is running so good!!! I just cruised around the neighborhood a bit letting the engine warm up and immediately noticed just how much better the engine was running. After it warmed up, we then got out on highway 280 and got up to speed with absolutely no misfires, only a smooth surge of power!!! Oh the sound was so sweet!!! Out on the open highway, I gave it the beans and she just took off sounding and feeling like it was effortless!!! It was really fantastic watching the tach needle climb and drop with each shift, no fluttering, just smooth as silk!!! What a difference new coils and plugs make, it's like a new lease on life for this car and I hope to keep her on the road for many years to come!!! My baby is back!!! Yay!!!

Thanks to all for the support in the "return from death of my SHO". She sat for 8+ years and today she is a reliable machine again!!!
Here are a few pics.

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[SHOdded]

Great pics, and hearing that sweet V8 growl must be so right!

 

[Funmart6]

The Lady is sleeping, waiting for another highway run!!! She's a Highway Star!!!

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[Funmart6]

Great pics, and hearing that sweet V8 growl must be so right!

It is very nice to hear the sound without any fluttering, the engine revs as far as I push the paddle down and no hiccups at all, just smooth power. I know these engines were notorious for cam failures but this one has 159,000+ miles on it, and the cams are not welded. Others might weigh in here, but this one may be the highest mileage V8SHO with factory stock cams. I bought the car in 2003 and it had about 80,000 miles on it so, go figure, this one must be a good one.

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[gamefanatic]

Well Ford Engineers were adamant that Red Loctite was all they needed, but with so many known to go. Its It's good insurance!

Its not an uncommon problem with hollow CAMs. There were many a GM before Ford with the problem.

 

[E1]

It is very nice to hear the sound without any fluttering, the engine revs as far as I push the paddle down and no hiccups at all, just smooth power. I know these engines were notorious for cam failures but this one has 159,000+ miles on it, and the cams are not welded. Others might weigh in here, but this one may be the highest mileage V8SHO with factory stock cams. I bought the car in 2003 and it had about 80,000 miles on it so, go figure, this one must be a good one.

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There were more than a few who came and went on the V8SHO.com email list who had claimed over 200,000 miles unwelded. I also remember one of those guys saying that because of miles, the weld would cost more than the car was now worth so he would just take his chances.

And then shortly thereafter he reported a cam failure. Go figure.

Also discussed was wear and tear on the jigs used to make the cams. It was supposed that if one received cams made with fresh tooling, the sprockets would be more secure. Those were the oddballs because all 4 cams in one engine would have to fall into the 'tight new tooling' category, which would be very lucky.

 

[stephen newberg]

Going in the other direction, I seem to recall one set of cam sprockets that failed in the upper 30,000 range. It has been my impression that they will all fail eventually, the only real question being time. When I was tracking it and it was a very common topic among owners the average seemed to be 80,000ish, but it was still a rather wide range.

pax, smn

 

[FoolishEarthling]

From wikipedia: "Soon after the introduction of the SHO V8 engine, widespread problems with the cam sprockets began to surface. Yamaha had used a relatively unusual method, called "swaging", of affixing the cam sprockets to the camshafts. The cam sprockets were fastened to the hollow camshafts by forcing a metal ball which was slightly larger than the interior diameter of the camshaft through the center of the camshaft, thus expanding the metal slightly and creating a mechanical bond between the cam sprocket and the camshaft."

As I understand, the balls used for the swaging wore down faster than expected, and so as the balls neared the end of their expected use they weren't doing the job they were meant to do (there weren't expanding the shaft diameter sufficiently and so the interference fit was not robust enough). So, if you were lucky and had fresh balls used for your camshaft assembly, then you might be ok without welded cams. If fresh balls weren't used to swage your cam sprockets onto the camshafts then you'll likely not be so lucky without welded cams (might explain why some engines failed at 60k while others went past 200k without welded cams). I've got two SHOs (just bought another); both have welded cams. If you live on the East Coast, just make the trip to FPS Mableton, GA (Doug Lewis) and keep one more SHO alive.

 

[98SF19]

I'm also in FL so FPS is my go-to. I just hope he's still in the game by the time I actually decide to bring dirty girl up there. For the nawth'n folks, is Kirk still doing G3 work?

 

[xdeutscher]

Thanks, I will post pics of the progress and update on the performance.

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Hey I’m curious how those coils and plugs worked out for you. I’m about to order a set.

 

[Funmart6]

Hey I’m curious how those coils and plugs worked out for you. I’m about to order a set.

They are fantastic, the engine runs super smooth now, no misfire issues under WOT anymore. Sorry I never updated.

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