coil arcing?

[timk]

so i'm fooling around with my car, and i hear a little popping. maybe like a spark.

i turn the lights out in the garage, car running, and around the coil i see a little faint glow. between the coil and the square metal housing around it. i removed the coil from the housing, and it's got soot all along the bottom, about where the glow was coming from.

it's an MSD blaster coil...about 18 months old.

is that normal? my car idles poorly, but by now that's just par for the course.

 

[The Shape]

Doesn't sound normal to me. I had the same thing happen with an ACCEL high output coil. Took my 50 dollar accel coil off and replaced it with a 13 dollar stock replacement and the problem was solved.

 

[timk]

Doesn't sound normal to me. I had the same thing happen with an ACCEL high output coil. Took my 50 dollar accel coil off and replaced it with a 13 dollar stock replacement and the problem was solved.

agreed. flickering, glowing parts can never be good.