Howdy Z-Folk, Just thought I'd pass on my recent fix up experience regarding coil pack connectors. Basically I identified one of the connectors as being the cause of my problems, and the top half of one needed replacing. Rather than buy a fresh new one and donate an arm for it... I grabbed one from a VL Commodore at the local wreckers. These Commodores have Nissan engines, and one of the plugs is IDENTICAL to the coil packs on the Z. Plus they're nowhere near anything hot, and are in generally much better condition than the average Z coil pack connector. I basically chopped the top of the connector from the Z a few inches down the wire, and soldered the new Commodore/Nissan engine one on. It's now the best fitting coil pack connector on the Z! I haven't driven the Z yet, but have had it started for about 5 minutes and it now runs like a dream... no more 5 cylinders! Oh... the connector also cost me $4.00... If I find for any reason my quick fix has failed in the next couple of weeks, I'll post it here. But so far so good...! Hope it helps.
Nice one :thumbsup: It would be interesting to compare Holden's price to Nissans Price for the connectors.
Good one. There was a post a while ago about the possibility of the VL connectors fitting our Zeds, and someone was going to check it out but we never heard any more about whether they did or not. Good to know that they do fit. Let us know down the track how they performed. Cheers Pete
Which plug matched the Zed coil pack connector?? I'm not familiar with the Holden/Nissan engine, do they have coil packs like we do, or is the plug from somewhere else???
Hi Zeppelin, that was probably me... I posted about it a few months back, but never got around to actually attempting it as the Z came good again. Had me confused for a while...
Well it missed badly at times... I'd be sitting on 100kph with cruise control on, and the connection on that cylinder (number 4 I think - not that it matters) would go bad, and I'd basically be running on 5 cylinders. Sometimes the cylinder would rapidly change from firing to dead over a few seconds. So I suppose you could say it was spluttering, but only because the spark in one cylinder was gone. Hope that helps.
Hey Kalus, I'm not sure of the exact place, but... my old man's got a VL so I'll get a pic tonight of the engine and circle the location (if it's not easily seen) and post it here so you can find it easier. Cheers.
Re: My father in law is service manager for Zupps so I'm gonna see I got told it's the crank angle sensor connector.
PICS - Where to find the connectors on the VL engine... OK, take a look at the pic below and you'll see a big yellow circle showing where you can find TWO connectors! I didn't realise there was a second one, but it seems that there is. Bear in mind that in this picture they're hidden behind the black air tube running right to left from the airbox. Looking a little deeper into the engine... the left hand yellow circle shows the connector that I got (well, my dad got) from a wrecked VL commodore. This is part of the Throttle Position Sensor (TPS). As mentioned in the starting post to this thread, one of these cost me $4.00 from the wreckers. The right hand circle shows the connector that's part of the oxygen sensor on the exhaust manifold. Now bear in mind that one half of this connector (the right half that comes off easily) is NOT correct for the Z. However I believe the left half which is attached to the engine is correct and can be used. Although I've not taken one off to test it, so don't quote me on that. Here you can see the TPS connector halves... identical to the Z coil pack connectors - and also the oxygen sensor connector circled below. I hope everyone's thinking twice about paying $30 odd for a single new connector! Also a big thanks to my Dad, as he's the one who actually sleuthed all this stuff out - cheers Dad! M
Did you have to file down the channel on the outside of the connector? In your pic, it looks slightly different to the clip that's on the side of the OEM connector. Cheers Pete
Mark, have you tried these on a zed? I'd like to add this to tech section but wanted confirmation they work first BTW: congrats on a great article!
