Guide: Phase 1 coilpacks to Newage coilpacks conversion

[Justin]

Did this the other day so I thought I'd share

You need to source coilpacks from any year newage car - not sure if the hatch is included here, that needs confirmation. You also need to source the loom - you only need the last 6 inches of loom which also has the connector for the coilpacks.

Then you need to source some old / cracked phase 1 coilpacks so that you can cut the loom for the phase1 connector plugs.

You also need 4xM8 ring eyelet crimp terminals, heat shrink sleeving, soldering iron and insulation tape.

1) Strip down the newage loom. Keep the outer sleeving near each connector, it will be reused. The loom is joined for each head, as in the earth feed and the common 12V feed are joined together - unwind all insulation tape and snip the black and red wires just before the join. You will need the full length of the earth wire so snip as close to the join as you can.

2) measure the length of the tails on the phase 1 coilpacks, then add 50mm to this since you need the newage tails to be a bit longer to cater for the fact that the wires enter the newage pack at the bottom, wheras the ph.1 pack it is at the top.



3) cut the ph.1 loom and the newage connector loom so that the total length of the 2 sets are the total figure you measured earlier. Grab the newage sleeving from earlier and slide that over the ph.1 loom, cut the heatshrink to approx 30mm and slide over the common 12v feed and the signal wires of the newage loom (12v is the red with yellow stripe, signal is the other colour that isn't black!). Then solder the 2 looms together - the ph.1 loom has a red and a yellow wire - red is 12v feed, yellow is signal.

4) Once soldered heatshrink the join, then slide the newage sleeving over the join, finally use iinslation tape to join the sleeving to the ph.1 loom.



5) Earth tag. The newage coilpack need to be earthed, my solution is to crimp an M8 eyelet ring terminal to the black wire, then unscrew the pack mounting bolt and attach the eyelet to the bolt, then rescrew the bolt back in



Job done!

But before fitting these you also have to bypass the ignitor module, located under the bracket near the BCS on the OSF strut. When I get that done I'll post pics and add to this guide.

[Scott.T]

Good mod.
What do newage coil packs cost new in comparison to the 1993-1996 items ?

Failing coil packs where the bain of my life when I was flogging 1993-1996 ECU upgrades.

"Fitted your chip/ECU and the car now miss-fires"....."check your coilpacks"...."but it was OK before I fitted your chip/ECU"...."check your coil packs"......"can I have my money back"...."check your coil packs"....."I checked them and they were cracked, fitted new ones and car now goes like stink"..........."Hooray!!!!"

[Justin]

I got a set of 4 used for £85, generally with looms its £100 a set used and of course every V1-2 owner will have a set of ph.1 coilpacks past their best!

[Justin]

Bypassing the ignitor:

The ignitor on the phase1 classics is located underneath the bracket that holds the boost control solonoid and the MAP sensor. There are 2 different types, one with a plastic body and one with an aluminium body and the connectors are not the same but the principal is..



I have the plastic one - one side has 4 wired to it, the other 5. The 5th is an earth and this must be grounded. The 4 wires going in and out of the ignitor are labelled 1 to 4, all you have to do is join the wires to the corresponding numbers, 1 to 1, 2 to 2 etc.

You can either make a note of the colours and snip the whole connector and module out and then connect the wires together, or (like I did) splice into the loom, make the join but keep the connector in the loom and remove the ignitor.



This was taken pre test run, once proved I then taped up the connectors and the loom to make it protected from the weather.

Job done, it works!