I have a 94 bmw 325i, and needed to take out one of the coils to swap over to my 98 328i because there was a cracked one in my 328i and would shake like crazy everytime i had it idle. Its a project, so i wont have money to replace it in the 325 for a while and wondering if it will still drive?
Sure!
But expect to replace the catalytic converter afterwards.
With a missing coil, raw fuel is going enter the catalytic converter and melt the substrate.
At least unplug the fuel injector for that cylinder so that doesn’t happen.
Tester
I wouldn’t, good way to burn out your catalytic converter.
No!
Ever heard the phrase “cause and effect”?
Ever heard the expression, “Shooting yourself in the foot”?
Hmmmmm?
Nobody remembers the Cadillac 8-6-4 engine?
The computer would shut injectors down depending on driving conditions to save fuel?
Tester
Sure, but he just wants to yank the coil.
not a good idea.
If they just want to yank the coil, then they have to disable the fuel injector(s) for the cylinder(s) for that coil. Otherwise raw fuel be will sent into the cat.
I’m not saying the engine isn’t going run rough. But the Check Light won’t come on because OBDI didn’t monitor engine misfire.
That’s how Cadillac got away with their 8-6-4 engine. It was OBDI.
Tester
Honda did cylinder disabling (VCM) in their V6’s from 2008 on; and they are OBDII.
They had problems with the disabled cylinders sucking in oil, which fouled plugs and was consumed when they re-activated.
I suppose in an emergency and you disconnected the fuel injector electrical connector it might be ok for a short low speed drive to get you out of trouble. But the engine is designed to work in a symmetrical, balanced manner, with all the cylinders working together. Running it in an unbalanced way like that would put forces on the moving engine parts they weren’t designed for, so if you got unlucky such a thing could do very expensive damage to the engine. I agree with the others, this isn’t a good idea.
Just buy a coil and replace it and be done with it.
Driving around with a bad coil or no coil is bad. Even if you unplug the fuel injector you’re still throwing the fuel trim way out of whack. Even the Cadillac 8-6-4 of 35 years ago did more than disable fuel injectors. It also kept the valves from opening and closing, which is the only way to modulate engine displacement.
I can’t think of any reason to drive around with a bad or no coil.
You can buy a coil for this car for as little as $20 at rockauto.com. It’s better than no coil at all.
Your 328 shakes bad? And u are positiv all 3 cylinders are not firing? A bad coil means 1 or more cyls might not fire. Not guaranteed that all 3 are misfiring. So u want to remove your the 325 coil and absolutely guarantee that the 325 will be running on 3 cyls and wonder if it will run worse?
GM and Chrysler do cylinder deactivation right now in their V8’s. It is 8-4 rather than 8-6-4. It’s even done the same way as the often criticized Cadillac; Disconnect the pushrods so the valves won’t open and turn off the fuel injection. Bingo, 4 banger running at a much larger throttle plate opening for less pumping losses.
The OP should NOT do this on his BMW.
It’s you car do what you like. But if you won’t have the money for just the coil do you really think you will have the money to replace the catalytic converter you are going to melt?
It's even done the same way as the often criticized Cadillac
I hope they do it a lot better then the 80’s Cadillac…that system was a piece of cr*p.
When the coil is removed, if the appropriate fuel injector is also unplugged, what long term damage can be done?
I’m leaning to agree with Tester on this one.
I hope they do it a lot better then the 80's Cadillac...that system was a piece of cr*p
Yes it was, Mike!
Today it works pretty darn well. I drove a Jeep and a C300 sedan with the Chrysler Hemi cylinder deact system and I couldn’t feel it change at all. Pretty transparent. I could HEAR it on the Jeep because the exhaust pitch changed. The GM’s I’ve driven were pretty much the same.