edman

I have a 1999 F150 extended cab short bed truck with the 5.4 engine. Three years ago, I bought eight and installed six Accel coils. The remaining
two were a replacement coil on cylinder #8,and an original coil on #7. A year later, the accel in #1 started to missfire, and was replaced with another accel. Today, after three years, I replaced the #3 accel with my last remaining coil. Later this week, I'll buy two more accel coils to finally replace the #7 and #8 coils, and make them my spares, which I'll keep in the truck. When the coils start to go bad, there is short term periodic missfiring, which eventually goes to total missfiring at that cylinder. Lucky for me, I have a scanner that has been pinpointing which cylinder has trouble, but it does take a hundred miles or more sometimes to set a code.
The original coils went well past 150k miles before the first one (#8) went bad. The accels only have 20k miles total, and I have already replaced two. My wife drives the truck, and she is nervious every time she has to leave town. Today was our third tow of a long distance, with the second tow home being a month ago when the #3 began its periodic missfire (the code finally set this week).
Has anyone else had issue with Accel coils for this application? Also, how have you resolved plug boots that are stuck onto the plug? My #4 cylinder has an accel coil pushed onto the old boot because the boot has become attached to the spark plug. I would like to replace the plug with a new one, but the boot will not come off. This is the worst cylinder to deal with, and the top of the boot has a small tear in it from having tried to remove it with curved needle nose plies. I need some good advice , anyone out there with a good tip? thanks , edman.

Kattumaram

Accel products are normally of pretty good quality, but I have heard some stories about Accel ignition coils giving less than stellar service. The complaints I've seen are about EDIS-8 coils used in earlier Ford engines, '90-'94 Lincoln Town Cars to be specific.

If troubles continue with the coils in your ride, I'd contact Accel and seek some relief....or at least an answer so you can avoid future problems with the products.

Boot-to-plug seizure can be avoided by applying copious amounts of silicon dielectric grease to the boot opening that surrounds the plug.
Getting the old boot parts out?? The hard way is the only way. Fashion a hook at the end of a suitable flat-blade screwdriver and use it
to rake out pieces of boot until you can get a plug socket on the plug.....and I KNOW where you're coming from on that @#$%##%@ #4 plug!!

edman

OK, I bit the bullet and pulled all coils on driver's side. I installed new Autolites were the 65k Bosches were. I also bought two more Accels to replace the #7 and #8 oem's. I now have seven new plugs and eight matching coils. The Accel coils have a tight plug fit, and the #6 boot popped off and stuck to the plug during removal. This time, an extra long needle nose plier pushed down to the max was able to pop the sticky boot off. What a relief! So, my #4 Accel is left sitting over a 65k mile Bosche plug. That's the one that has the other stuck boot.
As for replacing the driver side plugs, I removed the throttle shroud,the power steering bracket,and the egr tube only. It was still a real bitch wrenching out the little 7mm bolts that hold in the coils at #7 and #8 however. So there it is, I have one plug left that I am itching to install, but I know the stuck boot will be a triple pain to remove.I can't use my long needle nose plier because of poor leverage. I kept the boots of all the bad accel coils, so I may chose the slice and dice method. Has anyone ever had any experience with the #4 plug/boot that they can share?????