Old Library

The ANSWER.....

to the $350 VW Coilpacks (that are soooooooo lame)

I have a 94 Passat GLX with its second coilpack and 103,000 miles, and the #2/5 started intermittent sparks, sputtering, rough idle, blah, blah..So I checked into pricing, again.  The best price was $283 for a Beru (pronounced screw-you).  So I.m cheap and curious. I read on the VW Vortex forum that a guy named VR6nitedriver made an Accel coil pack work in place of the VW unit.   So I started to dig and came up with (actually with some more help from VR6ND) the 1999 Ford 3.8 litre VR6 Windstar GLX.  That.s right, a $19.99 used Ford 3.8 litre Windstar eBay part that runs like a champ in a Volksy (wow, can you tell I.m an old air cooled guy?)!  Here.s the story;

	Here's the unit from eBay. So I got the idea that this would at least be closer to the VW coil, well at least it looked similar. When my coilpack started to miss, I didn.t see any cracks on the outside and split the pack apart and siliconed the inside.  That.s all the red crap you see.  It didn.t work.  Anyway, the coilpack comes apart in 3 sections with a little help.
	After you remove the regulator, center punch the 3 rivet heads and drill out the back of the rivets with a 3/8" drill.
	Then you can separate the 3 pieces;
	Left to right: regulator backing plate VW coilpack
	This is the best part. It turns out that the bolt spacing on the Ford coilpack and the VW are EXACTLY the same in dimension a.
	So I took the backing plate and ground out the center rib, which VW put there so inconveniently, with a hand grinder. Once the rib is removed, bevel the inside edge of the backing plate because the Ford coil pack is a little wider. You want a nice level fit.
	You should get something that looks like this.
	So now you have a VW/Ford coilpack that can bolt right up to the back of the VR6.
Now for the wiring. I bought the following part at Advance Auto. I simply COULD NOT find the 4 pin Ford connector but if you have a good junkyard, should be no problem. Anyway, this is a 3 pin connector that I trimmed the away the plastic. I put a female blade connector to the 12+ and the 3 pin to the coil triggers. Here's a little guide on the Ford unit.
OK, now put some eyelet connectors on the end of the wires and using the 4 VW nuts, attach to the VW regulator. The VW regulator goes (bolted in the car, starting from the front of the car) 12+, coil 1/6, coil 3/4 and coil 2/5. When it's all ready to be bolted into the car, it looks like this.
	Notice that I sealed everything up with 100% silicone. BONUS-You can even trim the little VW plastic piece so that it covers the regulator studs - looks OE.
	Since only 2 of the 4 bolts work match exactly, I had to remove a little bit of the plastic on the one end of the Ford coilpack to slip the bolts by and used little tabs to just hold the other end in place.
	I also must note that the plug wires were really the trickiest part. I had to modify the Bosch connectors with little extenders to reach the bottom of the Ford coilpack. If I were to do it different, I think I would try something using an old set of Ford connectors. You can think of an easier way, I'm sure.
	Well, there it is. Runs great and idles smooth. By the way, if you want to buy the Ford coilpack new, it.s $85.00 at any local store. But like I said before, I.m cheap and curious.
Later, nidge
The original Microsoft Word doc is here.