Misfiring more during winter?

[chopperman]

My MP5 seems like it misfires when it isnt fully warmed up yet. Is this normal. It would misfire and then it would just kick in when fully warmed up and stop misfiring and I would have accelertion and torque. Temps right now are less then 25 degrees. Anyone else experience this problem.

 

[Raven Hawk]

I've had a couple of misfires in the cold weather, but I've also heard that you may start to get those on the P5 around 70k miles due to some problems with an ignition coil.

 

[chopperman]

ooo I have 77-78k miles on mine, damn.

 

[mazdaspeed777]

Do you have a CEL when it misfires?? My car is at 67,000 and it started misfiring with a CEL. It ended up being a bad coilpack so I replaced that and it runs like a top now. So you might want to check the two coil packs on your valve cover. If those are good, check and replace spark plugs. If you have a warranty just get it checked out.

 

[Diehonda]

Yes, during the winter your ignition coil doesn't seem to like the cold. It may fail and cause a single cylinder misfire or a multiple cylinder misfire. Your CEL will blink during or directly after the misfire and stay on there after. You can have the codes ran at an autoparts store.

The dealer charges between 90 to 97 per ignition coil. There are few out there as most online parts stores are on back order.

You can also find them at some online parts stores for as low as 12 dollars but with a 25 day delay which is worthless if you need to drive the car.

If you do get a single cylinder misfire try swapping the coild and clear the code. If the CEL comes back as another cylinder than only one ignition coil is bad.

Search multi cylinder misfire adn 2.0 Vs 1.8 ignition coils. Good info there.

 

[chopperman]

ok thanks, yeh my cel is blinking. Is it doing alot of harm to my motor?

 

[mazdaspeed777]

Yah, deffenatelly get that coilpack replaced sooner than later or you will cause other problems.

 

[Diehonda]

When one or both fail you will push the gas and not be able to speed up or hold your current speed. If you are on a busy road it could be dangerous.

Mine failed last week on the expressway and I had to act fast to get off at the next exit as everyone drives like nascar here.

Last night I installed a 1.8 ignition coil and plug wires. It smoothed out the power band a bit and I didn't have to worry about the backorder on the 2.0 ignition coils.

 

[chopperman]

how do i know if I have a 1.8 or 2.0, I was never sure of it.

 

[Diehonda]

2002-2003 Protege 5 is a 2.0

 

[mazdaspeed777]

And the older protege's are 1.8L

 

[i12drivemyMP5]

I recently did the 1.8 coil swap due to weirdness during rain & near the mileage for them to tweak. 40 something for the coilpack/mounting bracket from napaonline.com & 36 something for NGK plug wires from sparkplug.com & some tedious time spent removing the coil wires from the fi harness to get them to reach the new mounting location then taping it all back up nice & wrapping the coil wires up to the shrinkwrapped portion. You'll have to trim the wire boots on 2 & 4 if you don't also get an older valve cover that already had these but also has sensor hole on the front of it. I have the MSP valve cover/plastic motor cover so had to trim that for wire access. Here's what I ended up with. (Yes, the oem w/k&n drop in is ugly but it's the winter setup) the SRI is going back on soon. Was checking to make sure it wasn't the source of weirdness during rain before replacing coils.........http://www.msprotege.com/members/i12drivemyMP5/coils_1.jpg

 

[Diehonda]

I agree with the tediousness of the wire harness part of that project. I am not sure which one sucked more, unwrapping it or rewrapping it. I took a slew of pictures for a how to but haven't had time to go through them yet.

 

[ho bag]

I recently did the 1.8 coil swap due to weirdness during rain & near the mileage for them to tweak. 40 something for the coilpack/mounting bracket from napaonline.com & 36 something for NGK plug wires from sparkplug.com & some tedious time spent removing the coil wires from the fi harness to get them to reach the new mounting location then taping it all back up nice & wrapping the coil wires up to the shrinkwrapped portion. You'll have to trim the wire boots on 2 & 4 if you don't also get an older valve cover that already had these but also has sensor hole on the front of it. I have the MSP valve cover/plastic motor cover so had to trim that for wire access. Here's what I ended up with. (Yes, the oem w/k&n drop in is ugly but it's the winter setup) the SRI is going back on soon. Was checking to make sure it wasn't the source of weirdness during rain before replacing coils.........http://www.msprotege.com/members/i12drivemyMP5/coils_1.jpg

Now does this clear the MSP turbo manifold?

 

[i12drivemyMP5]

Now does this clear the MSP turbo manifold?

Don't know. I only have the MSP valve cover & plastic engine cover. My car isn't turbo. One that had turbo had to mount the coils somewhere else. I think that was what they had posted in an older thread. Not thinking there is room to clear manifold on turbo car.