Ignition upgrade kit

[CC Lemon]

Considering the frequent problems we've seen on these cars with misfires caused by less than perfect ignition components, it seems surprising that no one has offered some kind of affordable upgrade kit. Obviously, the ICM's are one of the biggest issues with the ignition set up on the S4. I can only imagine that it wouldn't be wise to invest in developing a better ICM unit at this point, but it seems like an ICM delete kit would be a great option. I've seen some people have done the ICM delete on their own by modifying their ICM's. I'm no electrician, so I can't say if that's the optimal or only way to manage that solution, but it seems to work, nevertheless. From what I understand, the ICM delete allows for the use of cheaper coils that will perform better and allow for better spark plugs as well.

So, unless I'm misunderstanding something, it's kind of surprising that someone doesn't offer some sort of upgrade. It seems like it would be a great upgrade for those looking for preemptive reliability improvements or some potential performance benefits. I know it's something that I would be willing to invest in for my stage 3 car and it's something I would have taken care of during the process of upgrading to stage 3 if there had been an option available. Sure, it's something I could probably figure out and do myself, but there's something to be said about quality, consistency and simple convenience that a well developed/built kit could offer. Plus, I'd expect a company could produce a much cleaner finished product than I could. Is it a matter of the costs involved to make something like this happen? Lack of interest from potential buyers?

I basically started this thread just to get some discussions going on the idea and in the hopes that someone might pick up the idea and develop something if enough people show interest.

[The_Auto_Tech]

Good luck.

The ICM setup on the S4's is something that I've never seen before and I would have no idea how you would begin to wire in a different ignition coil setup. The only thing I could think of is if you went backwards to a setup like the 2.8's had. That way you'd only have 1 coil and could just do spark plug wires.

[zillarob]

Looks like youve seen this already but will be interesting to see how it goes. http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth....-anyone-guess

Would be cool if someone put together a "painless" type kit for doing this. Figuring it out yourself is half the fun though.

[CC Lemon]

Someone has already successfully done an ICM delete:

http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth...952-ICM-Delete

I don't think there's a way for it to be a simple plug and play type system, but it could still be cleaned up and simplified for the end user, one way or another.

[The_Auto_Tech]

This is a very cool idea. It means sense to want to be able to replace the coilpacks with the latest revision and remove the ICM's. The thing is though you're still technically using "antiquated" coilpacks.

[infinkc]

Looks like youve seen this already but will be interesting to see how it goes. http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth....-anyone-guess

Would be cool if someone put together a "painless" type kit for doing this. Figuring it out yourself is half the fun though.

well my plan was to put in the new coilpacks this weekend, but i was waiting for a part i ordered from ECS to get here, i checked my order status and it says there is an issue with my order. Sucks cause i was expecting the package to come by now and they never left a msg on my phone or sent me an email about the issue. Looks like giving them a second chance for parts was too much ECS . Will have to call them on Monday now to see whats up.

As for a kit i have been working with a vendor to provide one, the cost for me to get the parts and put it together wont be worth it for me as the connetors are $$. Will see if i can source them from other places and make up a kit later on.

I went with the bolt downs since i read that the push downs sometimes have issues "popping" off. Figured the car has the bolts for them so why not use them.

[The_Auto_Tech]

well my plan was to put in the new coilpacks this weekend, but i was waiting for a part i ordered from ECS to get here, i checked my order status and it says there is an issue with my order. Sucks cause i was expecting the package to come by now and they never left a msg on my phone or sent me an email about the issue. Looks like giving them a second chance for parts was too much ECS . Will have to call them on Monday now to see whats up.

As for a kit i have been working with a vendor to provide one, the cost for me to get the parts and put it together wont be worth it for me as the connetors are $$. Will see if i can source them from other places and make up a kit later on.

I went with the bolt downs since i read that the push downs sometimes have issues "popping" off. Figured the car has the bolts for them so why not use them.

I work for VW/Audi and although the bolt down coil packs are better, no car has used them in years. The only time I see issues with the push down style is when someone doesn't seat them correctly. RS4's, TTRS, etc. all use the push down style. The wiring harness for them actually helps hold them in as well as it's very rigid. I would have thought you would have tried to use the red ignition coils from a 4.2 V8 or something as it would be better as far as reliability and for the "bling" factor.

[NOTORIOUS VR]

There really is noting wrong with the ignition system in our cars... as long as everything is working correctly.

You have to understand that the cars are 10+ y/o and they've been through a lot of heat torture. I too will be doing a conversion to Hitachi smart coils but only because it's cheaper to do it then buy 6 new coils/boots and 2 new ICM's. Plus it's not always the ignition hardware... our engine harness's pretty much fall apart from the constant heat as well...

[The_Auto_Tech]

There really is noting wrong with the ignition system in our cars... as long as everything is working correctly.

You have to understand that the cars are 10+ y/o and they've been through a lot of heat torture. I too will be doing a conversion to Hitachi smart coils but only because it's cheaper to do it then buy 6 new coils/boots and 2 new ICM's. Plus it's not always the ignition hardware... our engine harness's pretty much fall apart from the constant heat as well...

It's true, the ignition system in our cars is not "bad" by design because when it's working the correct way it supports plenty spark. It wasn't designed to be for a race car. I myself would like to go with an ICM delete setup, but only to make a cleaner install in the engine bay and for something to do as another "upgrade." I'm just curious how well it would work without having the power stages and using the coils to create the power. How much amperage do the ICM's provide compared to just using the coils?

[NOTORIOUS VR]

The ICM's don't supply any "power" (they're just an intermediate switch) and if you delete them you have to use active coils (4 wire coils), since they have the ignitor built into the coil itself since the ECU doesn't have high output ign. drivers just logic outputs.

[The_Auto_Tech]

The ICM's don't supply any "power" (they're just an intermediate switch) and if you delete them you have to use active coils (4 wire coils), since they have the ignitor built into the coil itself since the ECU doesn't have high output ign. drivers just logic outputs.

That makes sense then. I would think it would be a meaningful swap if you could delete the ICM's and run a setup like that then. Technically it should be more reliable and provide better spark output. Is there any chance we could just change valve covers and use push-down coils instead? I wouldn't mind being able to use the newer style ones, especially those pretty red ones from the 4.2. I would think that yes, those pigtails would be expensive, but I would be able to get them cheaper through work. All you would need then is 6 coils, some wire, and the connectors to do this swap, right? If anyone could do some pictures of there setup that would be great!

[NOTORIOUS VR]

I personally like the Hitachi colt down coils more... although you can use whatever coil you want once you change the plug end, since they all use the same 4 wire D-plug.

I will be sure to do a write up once I do mine though... probably over the winter as I'm going to modify my spare engine harness for this.

[infinkc]

I work for VW/Audi and although the bolt down coil packs are better, no car has used them in years. The only time I see issues with the push down style is when someone doesn't seat them correctly. RS4's, TTRS, etc. all use the push down style. The wiring harness for them actually helps hold them in as well as it's very rigid. I would have thought you would have tried to use the red ignition coils from a 4.2 V8 or something as it would be better as far as reliability and for the "bling" factor.

Yea was going to get the red ones at first, they were about $40 cheaper also. Just wanted to keep the bay stock looking and with the covers you would never see the red.

[CC Lemon]

Glad to see some discussion on this!

I realize that the ignition set up wasn't terrible and that a lot of the frequent issues are the result of age, but eliminating the use of ICM's seems like a reasonable "upgrade" in terms of coil options and removing the ICM's as a potential part to fail. Now that it's a frequent cause of problems, it would be nice to see a more "professional" option for improving the system. Like I said, I'm sure it's something I could figure out by following some of the previous examples, but I'm always a bit hesitant and paranoid about working with electrical parts. I can't say I've ever messed up any electrical projects, but I'm still paranoid about it and I know I'm terrible at producing clean looking results.

[The_Auto_Tech]

Yea was going to get the red ones at first, they were about $40 cheaper also. Just wanted to keep the bay stock looking and with the covers you would never see the red.

Yea, you're right. I was just thinking about that last night when I had my covers off when I was doing my catch can. If you don't have the covers that go over the valve covers you can't put the kidney covers on. And I think most of us here can agree that without the kidney covers the engine bay looks a lot messier. I ran without them for a while and then ended up putting them back on because it looked cleaner. So in that case you're right, you wouldn't see the coil packs anyways. I guess in all seriousness the bolt down coil packs are better anyways, but I figured it would be nice to run the most recent coil packs. It would be nice to remove the power stages though because then I wouldn't have to have them bolted onto my heatshield for my intake. lol

[csosnowski]

the hitachi coils provide less spark than the 2.0t red top coils, but the 2.0t coils are 14mm longer, idk about the ones from the 4.2.

my wife's car is a 2000 1.8t originally with the hitachi coils. i got a killer deal on 8 of the red 2.0t coils and decided to try them since a lot of the 1.8t guys are having good luck with them.

with the hitachi coils and NGK PFR6Q plugs i can run .028 gap with the GIAC file the car has, any bigger and it misfires.

with the 2.0t coils i can run .040 with no misfires.

i havent gone bigger yet to see, but ive heard that it is possible to run the .044 gap that the PFR6Q-11 comes out of the box with.

INA is now making adapter blocks for the bolt down to push down coils to make for a cleaner and more secure install.

i will be going with the 2.0t coils when i get the conversion sorted out, they are cheap like $80 for a set of 4 at ECS.

they are pretty secure when pushed down even without the adapter block, they "clip" on the top of the spark plug like spark plug wires do.

food for thought.

[034Motorsport]

We've been hearing a desire for this for awhile, and I have been working on a 034Motorsport kit for some time now, and it is just about be released!

We will post the introduction of the kit on the forums here, with special promotional pricing.

The kit will basically get rid of both ICMs, and give customers a very clean and safe way to install a new harness with the new and much cheaper FSI coils. It will clean up the engine bay as well as offering more performance potential. We hope the B5 S4 guys will be happy to finally have a legit ignition upgrade and a good replacement choice for our aging and expensive coils and harnesses!!!

[CC Lemon]

My logic wasn't terribly flawed! I figured someone had to have thought about something like this.

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more information about the kit. Depending on pricing, I'll definitely be in for one either at release or before the end of the year. Are you able to be a little more specific about the release date? It would seem that people's interpretation of "just about to be released" can vary from being in the next week or the next year lol.

[csosnowski]

We've been hearing a desire for this for awhile, and I have been working on a 034Motorsport kit for some time now, and it is just about be released!

We will post the introduction of the kit on the forums here, with special promotional pricing.

The kit will basically get rid of both ICMs, and give customers a very clean and safe way to install a new harness with the new and much cheaper FSI coils. It will clean up the engine bay as well as offering more performance potential. We hope the B5 S4 guys will be happy to finally have a legit ignition upgrade and a good replacement choice for our aging and expensive coils and harnesses!!!

this is great news!

i was not looking forward to splitting my engine harness apart: A) re-looming wires makes me very ocd and would end up taking a very long time; and B) no telling how many other electrical problems would "pop up" after bending a bunch of 10-year old wires.

looking forward to this

[S4 00 2.7]

We've been hearing a desire for this for awhile, and I have been working on a 034Motorsport kit for some time now, and it is just about be released!

We will post the introduction of the kit on the forums here, with special promotional pricing.

The kit will basically get rid of both ICMs, and give customers a very clean and safe way to install a new harness with the new and much cheaper FSI coils. It will clean up the engine bay as well as offering more performance potential. We hope the B5 S4 guys will be happy to finally have a legit ignition upgrade and a good replacement choice for our aging and expensive coils and harnesses!!!

Good to hear!

Max, are you posting this from your vacation resort?

[The_Auto_Tech]

I asked one of the Senior Master Audi technicians about this today. His response was something along the lines of it being a bad idea. He said the ICM's were set up the way they were to help deal with the heat. Apparently the transistors in the ICM's were done that way to help keep the heat out of the ECM, and deleting them and changing the coils would cause excessive issue with the ECM. This would make sense to me as the ECM's using the newer style coils are built much differently from before. I'll ask him about it again tomorrow to get more of the details, but this is what I remembered after waking up from my 2.5 hour nap. lol

[sweets4style]

The ECM signal doesnt output any differently or get feedback from the coil, ICM, or anything in between. Removing the ICM's will do nothing. In fact the ICM is indeed still there it is just integrated into each coil pack instead of a seperate packaged unit. 1.8t users have had this mod for a couple of years. First it was going to push down coil packs without the ICM using a later model harness and now doing the same with FSI coils with the added expense of a spacer or bracket to hold the coils down on the spark plugs due to their different design. You can actually do this mod yourself its just not as plug and play as a4 guys since their isnt a 2.7t with this upgrade from the factory already. You can buy 6 IE coil spacers or ecs hold downs or combo of the bunch and 6 coil packs and coil pack harness plugs from the dealer and do it all yourself in a couple of hours. I can make a do it yourself if your interested,

Remember as well you also have another option. Okada project coil packs. May be cheaper by the time 034 adds in a custom harness and markup.

[sweets4style]

What he or she is missing is that the ICM's or igniters as many other car crowds call them are not moving from the engine bay to the ECU. They do indeed create a lot of heat hence why they have their own heat sink. The step voltage up dramatically from a low current signal. As a by product they generate a great deal of heat. So this is a non issue. All yoru doing is rewiring the ICM's input to go directly to the coil packs instead of going to the ICM first and then to the coil packs. As FSI and later style 1.8t non fsi coil packs have individual ICM's or igniters in each coil pack. Hope that makes sense to you now.

On a side note. Do not take what any audi or non-audi alike mechanic has to say for anything. Many lack engineering degrees and are mechanics with opinions without any real routes in knowledge of electrical or mechanical engineering principles and shoudl not make statement like that unless they actually know what they are talking about. Most mechanics reactions to everything is dont change it because I dont understand why and it makes my life harder. No offense but it is very true.

[034Motorsport]

Heat is a byproduct of the ICM's, which are necessary for the 3-wire AEB style coils to function. The new FSI 4-wire coils negate the need for this, and don't have heat as an issue.

Our kit should be ready for release within the next month. Pricing isn't 100% concrete yet, but don't worry, I will post an introductory thread about it.

Good to hear!

Max, are you posting this from your vacation resort?

Hahah, no. Unfortunately I'm back to the mundane drone of reality!

[NOTORIOUS VR]

I asked one of the Senior Master Audi technicians about this today. His response was something along the lines of it being a bad idea. He said the ICM's were set up the way they were to help deal with the heat. Apparently the transistors in the ICM's were done that way to help keep the heat out of the ECM, and deleting them and changing the coils would cause excessive issue with the ECM. This would make sense to me as the ECM's using the newer style coils are built much differently from before. I'll ask him about it again tomorrow to get more of the details, but this is what I remembered after waking up from my 2.5 hour nap. lol

A perfectly good example as to why some people even Audi tech's shouldn't be listened to. Most have no idea how something REALLY works.

[fshowcars]

I asked one of the Senior Master Audi technicians about this today. His response was something along the lines of it being a bad idea. He said the ICM's were set up the way they were to help deal with the heat. Apparently the transistors in the ICM's were done that way to help keep the heat out of the ECM, and deleting them and changing the coils would cause excessive issue with the ECM. This would make sense to me as the ECM's using the newer style coils are built much differently from before. I'll ask him about it again tomorrow to get more of the details, but this is what I remembered after waking up from my 2.5 hour nap. lol

lol... heat through osmosis!? never thought of that as the engineering goal to overcome!

[megafreakindeth]

i was planning on doing this too with a slick loom like an audi 3.0 to make it look stock. especially after i saw 034 selling adapters for bolt down to push down style. ive also put 2.0t coils in a 1.8t and it just immediately sounded better and he said he actually saw some mpg gains.

[S4 00 2.7]

That would be nice to gain a couple mpg's.

[bl0wn3ur0]

This is all pretty interesting to me as I dread the day my icm's will fail so I'd love to see this happen.

Wouldn't it be possible to use the engine harness from a newer A6 since they don't have the icm's like we do???

I am in no way qualified to comment on the details of this stuff but it just seems like a cheaper oem solution like the A4 guys have been using.

[odhinnhrafn]

I honestly think a huge issue with our ICM's is their location, on the airbox... Once the heat soaks the rather inferior heatsink under it, then the heat has nowhere to go. I've had mine mounted on a separate aluminum heatsink, using Arctic Silver thermal paste, on the front of the strut mount for about 3 yrs now, since I installed my X-1, and the ICM's are still running strong, and they're still the original ones that the car rolled out of the factory with. I think the addition of the extra metal for the heat to dissipate into is a major help for them. From a computer perspective, sitting a heatsink against some plastic is dumb, so I don't see why it would be any smarter to do so in a car. Just my .02

[sweets4style]

Because the heat sink isnt distrbuting plastic. Its distributing to the constant flow of air under it via the airbox lol. Your engine is always sucking air, its always getting cooled off by the air flowing on the heatsink. I dont see why you have it mounted to the strut mount with thermal paste nonetheless. The thermal paste is designed to facilitate heat transfer between inferior surface finishes and imperfections. Paint would be a heat barrier therfore the paste does little to nothing at all. If you were to say remove the paint you would have something there. But this is completely unnecessary.

This mod is not for trying to cheap out on ICM's which really do fail very infrequently. Its to gain a hotter spark that then newer style coils provide and be able to run large plug gaps due to this. Getting rid of the ICM's is a side benefit as are the cheaper FSI coils.

[CC Lemon]

It might have been someone else, but I believe he mentioned somewhere else that he uses a separate computer heat sink and they're mounted on the front strut mount. It's been a long day, so I'm having a hard time picturing where exactly it would be mounted and where the airflow would be coming from. I can't imagine the heat sink being overly useful unless the air flow around it is significantly cooler than the temperatures produced by the ICM. Does anyone have any idea how hot the ICM actually gets?

[odhinnhrafn]

No, the heatsink I have mounted now is an aluminum one, and the thermal paste is between the ICMs and the heatsink. All metals, even well-polished ones have imperfections in them that trap air, which doesn't dissipate heat, so you use the thermal paste to fill in those imperfections and facilitate heat transfer, in this case to the heatsink which then transfers its heat to the strut mount, which is cooled by the constant air flow around the wheel.

It's mounted to the fender well in front of the shock mount, directly behind the stock airbox location (I have the X-1 intake) basically, and that area is always getting cool air due to its being open, and the air passing through the fender liner vents. Granted, the paint doesn't help, but with the oversized 1/4" thick aluminum sink, it's worked great for 3 yrs. Plastic doesn't transfer temps efficiently at all, so the airflow through the airbox doesn't really help at all.

Not saying this is the be-all, end-all solution, just possibly a little more efficient than the stock mounting.

[S4James]

Unlikely: the stock mounting has a larger, finned heatsink that is exposed inside the airbox, getting directly cooled by the air fed to the engine from the snorkel. The X1 supplied plate that you bolted to the shock tower is probably adequate but not even close to the same level of heat transfer capacity as stock.

I have the exact same thing as you, and so far so good.

[ECS Tuning-Audi]

I've always wondered about this for the S4. 1.8T's guys delete the ICM all the time and its relatively easy to delete. Id imagine its the same concept just double the amount of wiring for an S4.

Good info!

Jason