Nowadays it is hard to improve the ignition on late model cars. New car ignitions, especially ones with coil on plug systems are more powerful from the factory than racing ignitions of just a few years ago. In a few cases, we have made cars run worse by installing a high-performance ignition system because the factory parts were better. We’re upgrading our Project GD Subaru STI’s EJ256 motor with high-performance Ignition Projects – multi spark ignition coils, part number IP-A136401 . These high tech coils feature a high-power built-in spark amplifier, producing 4 times the spark energy and increased spark amperage of 100% over stock coils.
Ignition Projects Subaru coils are unique in that they not only have four times the spark energy of the stock coils but they also fire multiple times for each ignition event. In fact, they not only fire with four times the spark energy but they spark 10 times for each triggering event! That give the fuel-air mixture 10 chances to ignite vs only one via the stock ignition!
The Ignition Projects coils give this capability internally in the coil itself so there is no need for mounting and wiring any external magic boxes or alter the vehicles wiring in any way. The Ignition Projects coils are also designed to be low noise so, despite the extra power and multiple sparks, there will be no interference with other vehicle electronics and audio components. The first is critical with modern cars with many integrated digitally controlled parts.
The stock coils on a Subaru flat 4 are a little hard to get to as the EJ engine is wide and the engine compartment is tight.
A little creativity with 1/4″ drive ratchets and flex heads get to the bolt holding the coils in place.
While we were in there we changed the plugs. The factory double platinum electrode plugs looked pretty good, even with 80k miles on them.
13 comments
Great to see some updates on project GD. I’ve been meaning to get a set of these for my EJ205 with 115k miles on it, but I’m hesitant because of the initial price and hearing that I need a re-tune from my previous tuner (who has since gone out of business) if I install them.
You do not need to retune with these!
I’ve been interested in this product ever since it was under the Okada Projects brand name. It seems these would give you +3 HP across the entire powerband, decrease emissions, increase gas mileage. Probably no downsides except the initial cost!
It is one of the only products that can significantly improve on an OEM coil on plug ignition.
Do these coils stop multi-sparking at a certain rpm, like the MSD ignitions did back in the day (and maybe still do today)?
The manufacturer says it continues to multi-spark as the revs rise.
When tuning my car in with new bits, I’ll use the stock coils as the okada’s will clean up issues that should be resolved by other means.
I’d like to see some data on whether these really live up to their claim of 4x the spark power and this multiple sparking.
As we have seen with coils like the famous splitfire coils for the RB26 it says a lot on the tin but end of the day the spark energy was exactly same as OEM, they were just fancy colours. And at least for RB26 nothing other than the AEM smart coils or going CDI beats out the R35 OEM coils.
Also how do these coils suddenly manage to multispark? Multispark is ECU controlled not coil controlled, and if it was coil controlled you would need to store the energy for multispark somewhere and then control how much is released to then have energy for multispark. I just can’t see this happening with coils that are similar size and shape as OEM coils and just plug in replacements.
I mean there are scientific tests of these coils that have shown they are just a sticker and some fancy marketing but most of that is in forums (granted they did some good testing using good equiptment etc) but I’d like to see a reputable publication do some proper testing with stuff like this, and I don’t mean strapping the car to a Dyno. Some proper testing a la Motive DVD.
So I’d really like to see a test of these vs the OEM coils and some other coils on the market like LS1, R35, AEM smart coils etc.
Not trying to rag on anything but I’d like some empirical testing and data before I call shenanigans 😉
Come on by with your equipment and let’s do it! Seriously there are some electronics in a box on the coil which is probably some sort of transistor and a processor. These coils are nothing new and have a really good reputation. A lot of the top time attack cars and 2JZ powered pro drift cars run these. From using them the I know the plugs stay cleaner, even with heavy lead race fuel and you can run a wider gap than anything else I have tried without misfire even with boost and water injection. You can put these on your car and feel the difference right away.
Bit far away in Germany but I would love to test a set if someone will send me some! I work at an R&D centre for engines & Vehicles and we have some of the equiptment to test this (I just went to ask 😀 ). Im goin to try it out on my factory RB26 and Splitfire RB26 coils and see what I can come up with.
Testing and data is always a good to back up to the real world experience cause I like to know why and how things perform better.
Is the Splitfire a Direct spark conversion kit? It would be great to get the Evo off of waste spark.
Ignition Projects offers the above coil pack ($895) but also a quad-spark coil ($495). What is the performance difference or advantage between this version and their quad-spark on an EJ25?
The quad spark is meant as an OEM replacement with a mild performance gain. The more expensive ones have a much higher output and are used for more performance applications.