Subject is my question, I know lots of folks run these things and I'm curious about their durability over time & use - what are your experiences? Not talking about the Chinese counterfeit cheap knock-off ones, but the real AEM coils.

Reason for the question is I just discovered that 1 of the 4 AEM smart coils on my FC is now completely dead, and a 2nd one appears to be on the verge of crapping out too, and they are only 3 years old. My FC isn't a daily driver either - seems like a too short life?

 

I would think that Mercury Marine makes the real ones and AEM are just knockoffs.

 

I have the Haltech branded coils. Over 10k miles and 4 years so far.

it could be the dwell times in your tune or perhaps the grounding method.

 

I've grounded them per Mercury Marine/AEM's schematic - power grounds to the battery ground, TTL/signal grounds to the ECU's signal/sensor ground, and the "cylinder head"/spark plug grounds going to the corresponding rotor housing. The dwell settings I'm running are rather conservative and well within the coil's specs - pretty much 3mS everywhere in the map; a little less at very high RPMs >8K. Only exception to this is at low voltages & cranking RPMs, where I'll extend the dwell a bit to about 4.5mS which helps it fire off easier at startup - and this is still well within the coil's specs for dwell.

 

where are they mounted? maybe heat related

 

I mounted all 4 of the coils in the space that used to be occupied by the stock trailing coils on a custom bracket I fabricated. They are arranged in a 2x2 stack, and there's plenty of room between them and behind each coil's heat sink for air circulation when installed.

 

"improper" wiring is ruled out. What kind of voltage are they seeing with the car off and the car running?

 

Power to the coils is supplied thru a relay that is controlled by the AEM Infinity ECU. With the ignition switched OFF or in ACC positions, they see 0V. In the START position, while cranking they will they see about 10.5~11.5V - this battery voltage drops as the starter running pulls it down. In the RUN position with the engine running, coils will typically see between 13.4~14.3V, depending on the battery's state of discharge and other electrical loads that are running. If ignition is switched to RUN, but I don't start the car, it will see battery voltage - 12.2~12.6V typically.

 

Power fc runs them in wasted spark on the trailing. Working twice as hard.

 

Ignore that. Read FC and assumed power fc

 

Now if you say adaptronic....

 

sent you a pm on who to try and contact about it