i have a 2003, 5 speed. my car runs fine, but will not idle (it just dies when in neutral or when the clutch is engaged) it starts back up when i put it back in gear like it's in auto stop mode--but instead of the auto stop light, its my oil and 12v battery light on. i'm assuming i'm barking up the right tree replacing the ignition coils and spark plugs

but i'm confused as to what parts to get. can someone please explain why when i search for ignition coils i see sets for the front and rear? and sets of 8? these cars are 4 cylinders, and they are all in a row on the firewall side. are there 4 more cylinders up front i didn't know about?

help please! much thanks!

 

answer: i've discovered that civic hybrids have what is called "twin spark plugs" to increase efficiency.
2 per cylinder (front and back). so there are 8 spark plugs, and 8 ignition coils (4 in front and 4 in the rear).

i guess job just got twice as expensive!!!

cheers everyone!!!

 

Twice? Not with their magic plugs... Make sure you only replace the plugs with the NGK or Densos listed. They're expensive X 8.

When I needed a coil for my HCH2, I found a Hitachi made one at Rockauto for about $45, which was about half of the Majestic Honda price for an OEM, and Hitachi made my OEM coil.

EDIT: Hmmm... only lists one type of Plug... SK16PR-L11, which is a Denso. Walmart.com has them for $10.19. Coil P/N for your car are 30521-PWA-S01 (front) and 30520-PWA-S01 (rear).

Rockauto shows HITACHI Part # IGC0051 (front) for $41.89 and HITACHI Part # IGC0052 (rear) for $44.79.

 

coils i pulled out were hitachi cm11-108 3513c for the rear
i found lots of versions online where the part number matches the cm11-108 but not the 3513c. in other words they all end in some other 4-digit number ???

 

I can't say for sure. Given my positive experience with Hitachi coils from RockAuto, I would expect you will have no issues ordering the ones I listed.

I have 2X HCH2, so I had the luxury of being able to swap out all the coils. It turns out only one of the 8 coils was bad. I would encourage you to buy maybe 1-2 of each rather than all 8 as I find it unlikely that all 8 are bad. A set up plugs and 1 of each coil is already going to put you at the $200 mark.

Good luck,

Steve

 

Coil packs can be checked for some modes of failure with nothing more than an ohmmeter. Basically it comes down to measuring the resistance on the output (wires to the plug) and the input (wires from the ECU). The pack with out of range measurements is bad. The test doesn't work 100% of the time as some other things can go wrong - like the output side having a short that only expresses at high voltage (sparking across parts of the coil). Of course also check the coil pack for cracks or other obvious signs of failure.

Does the HCH really have 8 packs? A lot of cars drive 2 spark plugs from one coil pack ("wasted spark"). Since the HCH has 2 plugs per cylinder, it could potentially drive 4 plugs from one pack.

 

I understand, and I tested resistance on all coils. They were essentially identical, and the bad one was mid-range of the measurements (not an outlier).

Yes. 1 coil per plug, 8 total, 4 of one P/N in rear and 4 of another P/N in front per my prior post.

You can do your own confirmation here at Majestic Honda:

https://www.hondaautomotiveparts.com...artsSearch.jsp

They provide full part illustrations and Honda numbers.

Steve

 

Well that sucks. How long did it take you to test them all by swapping one at a time?

Well that's designing for maximum maintenance costs! Which pretty much seems to the entire philosophy on the HCHI.

 

Hehe... an unintended consequence of "make it crazy efficient." I'm sure there's some miniscule measurable efficiency improvement resulting from 2 plugs per cylinder AND a coil per plug. They were looking at so many little mpg improvements to make the aggregate perform well.

I had the second car to work with. I arbitrarily swapped all the front coils between the two cars. The problem (a bit of a stumble on accel) moved to the other car. Then I started restoring them to their original locations. It was the 3rd I tried, so ... maybe 5 minutes including 3 test drives?

Got a friend with an HCH1?