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96 ford contour, 2.5 engine, miss

i got a 96 ford, contour, and have been having problems with it.. think i got it narrowed down to the igntion coil( i have a distributor-less engine).. the coil is the thing that the spark plug wires are attached to... i checked it today and found that i am not getting any power out of the No. 2 and No. 6 wire.. i got a reply from a web site that the coil works with two wire postions together, thats why the 2 and 6 are not firing and it seems that the coil is fried.. i also have the wire insulation under the hood messing up.. i know about the recall, but would like to know what controls the coil to tell it to fire to what wires( unlike the old distributors where the rotor turns and makes contact to each spark plug wire) what determines what wire will be firing???? is it the crank position sensor or some other sensor?? and how do you test them??? i dont want to put another coil in the car and find out that it did not get to the root cause of the problem... thanks for a reply.....

Reply to
jim
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The engine computer is what controls the coil pack.

Reply to
Thomas Moats

First, check out

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They know the car inside and out.

Odds are you need to replace the coilpack. I would guess each coil has it's own control wire. You could try a quick test of simply unplugging and replugging all connectors just in case one contact has gone bad (with the power OFF of course!!) If the other two coils are working, odds are the sensors and computer are working. I no longer have my manuals (I used to own the related Mercury Mystique), so don't know what might be between the computer and the coilpack.

The computer tells which coil to fire. It's based on the cranskshaft position sensor, among others. One plug is on the positive side of the coil, the other on the negative. In fact, in some years, Ford used different spark plugs depending on which side of the coilpack it was connected to. This was a cost-cutting measure as the difference was which electrode was platinum. It has to do with the direction current flows. The recommended replacements have platinum on both electrodes of the plug.

Reply to
Andrew Rossmann

I think the number 2 and 5 wires are on the same coil (not 2 and 6). I looked my V6 this morning and appears to be the arrangment.

Also, look at

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Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

thanks for the info, but whatever it is, on mine is looks to be the No.

2 and No. 6, as there was no power from 2 and 6 and a new coil solved the problem..... looking at the coil pack from top was like this: 4 6 5 3 2 1

so this might make me think that with the 2 and 6 not working and being one ontop of the other and someone quoted from their service book might tend to make me think that they are correct, but it does not matter as the car is running now.. thanks anyway....

Reply to
jim

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