Whats the proper procedure or what are people doing to test coil pack integrity? One or 2 are breaking down under load on my car and had a problem with them when I first got it running, so I dont want to do the coil shuffle on the side of the road swapping them till I find one.

Correct procedure goes as follows

Step 1 remove old coil packs x6

Step 2 place in bin

Step 3 install new GENUINE coil packs

Dont stuff up step 1 and 2

Cheers

Agree with above, though I'm running a set of VDO coils that have done well so far, only set of coils I've put in and it was quite a while ago, now up to 247,000km. Bit cheaper than genuine from some eBay seller. Might have gotten lucky, who knows. Can probably get genuines for an OK price on eBay anyway.

Test resistance in primary and then again on secondary. These resistance values give you a good gauge on the health of the coil pack.

I would love to come up with a good test for this.

I replaced my older original coils with cheap after market ones on new NA BA.

The car went great for a while, but then started misbehaving.

I wasted a lot of time and effort trying to fix the problem which was really the NEW coils.

I tested resistance of the coils, but it did not show anything.

I suspect that the problem is that the insulation within the coils is not good enough the high voltage spark jumps through the windings in the coils rather than goes through the spark plug.

I think the only way to test would be a system which simulates actual work for the coil (and possibly puts it under a little higher than normal load) and then counts/measures good spark.

If anyone has a good process for testing, I would love to hear it.

Yeah I've read you can't test them properly as you aren't putting them under the same load/heat conditions as driving the car hard does.

Factoring the cost of time and labor and the age of the components involved (and hence the expected service life) you may as well replace the coils and plugs in one hit and get those variables out of the way.

If it works great. If not you have fresh coils and plugs for the next 5+ years.

The genuine Ford coils and plugs are not that expensive these days.

Yeah I just wanted to keep some spare ones, going to get a new genuine set off the guy on ebay for $220 that guys have recommended to use. Theres only 1 sick one so throwing away 5 working ones is hard when they're known to fail as often as they do. Is it the heat that's killing them? Figured the cover must work as a little dutch oven for them.

Anyone gone to aftermarket coils or an external type that have last longer?

Inb4 weaponX h8

Yes.

Throwing away 5 good ones, just because of 1 bad one seems wrong to do.