So after a year and a half of forced induction I've finally run into my first problem, and so far it's sucking major ***.

It's an 06 6MT with the Momentum single turbo kit, headers and exhaust. Z1 tuned it a couple months ago and it was running great. The only thing I can think of that seemed off was that for the past few weeks leading up to the coil pack going it wouldn't start on the first turn of the key. I'd turn the key and it would turn over for 3 or 4 seconds but not start, and then if I turned the key back to the off position and tried again it would crank up immediately like normal. I think I also noticed a couple times that I would get on it and it seemed like it wasn't pulling nearly as hard as normal.

So I'm sitting at a red light and I hear a pop from the exhaust and all of a sudden my car sounds like a WRX. It would still drive it just sounded and felt crazy. I called the shop and they said it was definitely a coil pack. Took it in and they replaced the coil pack and all the spark plugs. Went to pick it up, drove and got gas, pulled out and stopped at a red light. Heard a pop again, car sounded like a WRX again. Took it back to the shop. They messed with it all morning when finally the owner of the shop called and said he gave up pretty much (it wasn't a specialty shop). All he could tell me was that that cylinder wasn't getting a signal from the ECM (is that the same as the ECU?).

I've scoured the web for other people with the same problem, some said it ended up being a grounding issue, some said somehow water had gotten in the ignition system because it had rained a lot (I live in Atlanta and it has been raining pretty much every day so that was interesting).

If anyone has experienced an issue like this before and ended up resolving it PLEASE let me know. I've searched all over the place and cannot find a clear answer.

 

Look for water / moisture in the ECU/ECM connector in the passenger side foot well. Check the grommet behind the battery. The after market wiring that goes through there often is not sealed back up well.

 

I had an issue with coil packs burning up and was a faulty ECM. After replacing ECM never had anymore coil pack problems.

Initially my valve cover overlays caused the coil packs to burn up and damage ECM. Valve cover overlays are louvered now to prevent overheating coil packs.

 

+1... issues like this are usually ecu related

 

Thank, it was the ECU in this case too! Are Uprev tunes known to mess up ECU's?