Hi, I am new to this message board, but I am in need of help to determine what is wrong with my 87 Camaro. Here is a description: 87 Camaro with 2.8L V6 multiport fuel injected with 5spd.

The problems started a while back when the coil went intermittant and then gave up. I replaced the coil at that time along with dist. cap, rotor, plugs and wires and fuel filter. It never seemed to run the same afterwards. What I've found is the plug wires are arcing to ground somewhat intermittantly. When this happens, the performance falls flat and the tach bounces.

The coil is an aftermarket brand I don't remember. The plugs, wires, cap, rotor are GM.

I've checked everything I can think of and everything checks out. Has anyone seen this type of problem or have any suggestions?

 

If the plug wires are arcing to ground, the problem is with the wires. You say it only happens intermitently, is it random or does it happen when it's raining or high humidity?

 

When I say somewhat intermittantly, I should be more specific. It was worse in the morning, got better after 20 miles or so of freeway driving where it seemed ok. However, it still stumbled and serged. I was reading in the GM manual about poor ground or open ground wire on the coil or module, but can't find any problems there. I am about to change the coil again to see if there is something with the ground side of the coil. These cars run so hot, it breaks down the insulation on the windings and frys wires.

 

My coil is in the stock location and I have never had a problem with it. A lot of poeple on here have remote mounted their coil, KED85 for example. Personally, I have found no need for it, but it's possible. I would say that it's time to replace the wires themselves. I had this problem a while back on mine and it was a pain to figure out.

When the car was cold, it ran awesome, but as soon as it heated up, it started surging and missing. The problem was that the wires themselves got hot and the when the insulation got hot, its resistance became lower than the plug gap's and they went to ground instead of to the electrode.

I suggest replacing the wires themselves and seeing what happens, you've already done the rest of the ignition. If you had a bad ground, you would know it, you'd have a lot more problems seeing as that the primary side of the ignition grounds throught the computer. So if you lost athe computer ground you'd have issues with injectors and other stuff too that uses that same ground.

hope this helps,
Jeff

 

Thanks for your suggestion. I've already put on a new set of GM wires. The old set was a Kragen special which fried and broke in about 20K miles. Since everything is new (within 5K miles of new), I am somewhat at a loss.

 

did you reinstall the heat sheilds and run them with the wire loom things? Routing is very important or the new ones will go to crap very quickly if they are too close to the manifolds.

 

Are you refering to heat shields around the heavy boot where the wires snap to the plugs? If so, I never had any. The only heat sheild is around the EGR valve.

The wires are routed such that I tried to keep them away from the distributor connects and wires. So, I am pretty close to the factory routing.
Thanks

 

Those missing heat sheilds around the plug boot is almost definitly your problem. The manifolds get up to 400*F at times and your rubber isulation is less than an inch away. They cook and loose thier insulation properties.

 

Ok, I can agree with you that the wires will get cooked over a short period of time, but even with a new set of wires it still exhibits the same problems. I was able to reduce the arcing with new cap & rotor to a minimum, but still exists. I initially thought I was having problems with injectors until I found the coil wire arcing to ground. Maybe I have multiple issues going on here. How can I tell if I have a bad injector?