Monte Carlo Forum - Monte Carlo Enthusiast Forums - Guide: Maintaining 6th Gen Coil Packs

Alright evryone,

As im sure most of you know from experience and simply browsing the forums, numerous owners have run into problems with the Monte coil packs. Primarily you will see this issue arise on the 3.4L (Ls), but it is not unheard of in the 3.8L (SS). Incase you have no idea what im talking about, allow me a second to back track a little.

On the 3.4L motors, the three ignition coil packs are mounted on the top back half of the engine in a flat horizontal format, and to be quite honest they are not protected from the elements very well. If you have a leaky hood gasket, or simply detail you're engine bay often, sooner or later you will run into some serious issues as these coils do not hold up very well.

On the 3.8L motors, the issue is not as common due to a lower placement on a downward angle in the engine compartment which promotes drainage of any water which may collect, yet i advise you still take a few moments to check on your's as well.

....so in short pretty much heres the deal. I am going to walk you all through two quick steps which should be performed regularly to check and maintain the integrity of these vital components, because lemme tell you; anyone who has had to change plug wires on either a 3.4L or 3.8L will tell you that rolling the motor forward past the front mounts to gain access to the rear of the engine is no fun, and lets be honest at a list price of 75.00 per coil (+ wires in most cases), i doubt you want to overlook this common issue. When these packs go it can cause all sorts of odd ball issues. For instense, when the top two packs began to go in my 3.4L, my motor whould not go over 4k rpm, it acted as if there was a rev limiter and i chased this problem down for months due to the fact it wasnt throwing a check engine light until my car really started skipping. So please i advise you read on.

Step 1) The first thing you are going to want to do is remove each individual plug wire from the coil packs. REMEMBER do this one by one so you dont get confuse where they came from. As you begin to inspect the coil pack post, and the inner casing of the plug wires look for any obvious signs of corrosion (white chalky dust/ rust are usually good indicators) If any of you're coils or wires show significant wear, you're best bet is to just bite the bullet and replace them now boys and girls. I've heard of people sanding down rusted spots, but in essence, all you are doing is adding to the problem so please do it right. (maybey you can get those MSD's you've all been looking at now)

Step 2) If all you're plugs and wires appear to be good, wipe down the terminal posts with a clean dry rag. Now using some electrical grease liberally apply it to the posts and a slight dab into the inside of you're plug wires at the pack. If you're fealing froggy, you could even remove the two 6mm or 7mm bolts securing the coil pack and regrease the two pins that make the first contact.

Again, this is not hard at all and essentially could save from a costly repair simply because its a small component which is often overlooked. If anyone has any further questions please dont hesitate to ask, and i hope this post can be of assistance.