1996 S-10 4 cyl ignition problem - can I swap 1/4 and 2/3 coils?

My '96 Chevy S10 began to run rough and the "check engine soon" light came on. I replaced the plugs and have the same trouble. Three of the 4 plugs look the same, signs of use, but the #2 plug looks like it hasn't fired for a while. Sure enough, I get no spark from the #2 wire. I get a resistance to ground from the #2 and #3 spark plug wires, but not from #1 or #4. This is a weird ignition setup, with two coils and no distributor. It looks like one coil fires cylinders

1 and 4 and the other fires cylinders 2 and 3. I assume it fires twice each revolution in both cylinders, with only one cylinder having an effect at a time.

Anyway, I'm suspecting that the coil feeding cylinders 2 and 3 is faulty. I'm thinking of swapping it out with the one for cylinders 1 and 4 to see if the problem follows the coil, but I'm wondering if there's a difference between these two parts since one is labeled 1/4 and the other one is labeled 2/3. Does anyone know if it's safe to swap these?

Thanks in Advance.

Dave B.

Reply to
Dave Barnett
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The ignition coils are the same, from factory towers labeled to make it easier to know which spark plug wire goes were. After market not labeled. Be gentle swapping them.

Whitelightning

Reply to
Whitelightning

Did you remove the plug wires and test them? You could have a bad wire.

Al

Reply to
Big Al

Yeah, I measured the resistance of each and they were all about the same. That's when I started looking at the coils. Turns out that yes, indeed, one of them was bad. Replaced it and it runs fine. As a bonus, my radio has less ignition noise!

Thanks for the help.

Dave B.

Reply to
Dave Barnett

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