So after not being able to find any valuable information pertaining to changing out a coil pack for a 2.8 12V, I decided to whip this little DIY up to help solve any mystery for other 12V owners.

First, as with any project working with electricity, disconnect the negative battery cable. There is nothing really difficult with this job other than removing quite a bit of parts that you will find will be in your way. If you do not feel comfortable doing this work, it looks like you are stuck paying a mechanic. Now that legal disclaimers are out of the way, let’s get started.

Pop the hood and you should be staring at the engine cover.

Unscrew the 4 plastic screws that secure the engine cover.



At the front of the engine sits the coil pack.



Using an Allen wrench, I forget which size, unscrew the 3 large screws under the coil pack. At this point, you can do what I did and connect the spark plug wires to the new coil pack so that you install them in the proper order.

When you remove the 3 allen screws, you will notice that 2 wires run under the intake runners toward the rear of the engine.



You can just barely see the wires in the above photo by the spark plug for cylinder #5.

As I mentioned earlier, the two coil pack wires run toward the rear of the engine, and for a while I did not know where they went (the ultimate reason why I am writing this DIY, I couldn't get an answer from anyone concerning where these wires went).

I decided to remove this piece the back of the air intake where it meets the rear of the engine to attempt to gain more clearance.



This is necessary to gain you the extra room to remove the old wiring and run the new wiring. It is good to mention here that I had previously ordered vacuum lines to replace 15 year-old lines, it turns out I'm glad I bought them as I broke more than one vacuum line......so food for thought.

Remove the two screws holding the plastic piece to the top of the engine.




There are two plastic tubes that connect to the bottom of this piece that you need to disconnect to move this unit out of your way completely. Unfortunately I did not take a photo of this, but you'll know it when you see it. You should be able to remove this plastic piece out of the car (with most of the vacuum lines if you were careful).

The next item that needs to be moved is the coolant reservoir expansion tank.




Now that everything that was in your way is now out of your way, you should be ready to remove the old connectors and wiring to remove the old coil pack.

The longer of the two wires ultimately runs to the top of the air intake box



The other wire and connector terminates just underneath the coolant expansion tank along with three other connectors. You want to remove the middle one (mine was white, hopefully yours is too).



Now there is just the matter of removing the old wires. If you have worked on Audi's at all, you know their engineers have a great sense of humor. I wish I could have provided you with photographic evidence but the hardest part of this job was trying to loosen a wire strap that bundles what seemed to be 5 wires at the back of the engine. You will not be able to see much of anything here, and you may get frustrated. You basically have to feel around until you feel where this wire strap is. Take your time removing the strap. Once you have done so, you can begin removing the wires.

I decided to place string with slipknot on the old connector prior to removing the wire. This helped me immensely with re-routing the new wires in the same stupid position Audi had from the factory. From here it is just taking your time maneuvering the connector through the many cramped areas until you have pulled it all the way through. I chose to pull the new wire through before pull then next wire out, but you can do whatever combination you want.

Once you have everything connected, just start replacing everything you moved or removed. Before I started the engine I turned the key to the setting closest to "on" without turning the car over. When I removed a vacuum line I heard air escape and in my mind I wanted to "prime" the system if that made any difference.

Hopefully your car should now have a smooth idle and you should be happy in a job well done.

Now go enjoy a Yeungling, or whatever your favorite libation may be.

 

Nice, man. Seems like it was a little sadistic to route the one under the plenum only to plug it into the airbox area - they easily could've run that alongside the passenger fuel rail and saved you the headache.

I'll leave this here a few days so its presence is known before moving it to the DIY area.

 

What was sadistic is they zip tied or strapped the bundle in a location in the back of the engine under a bunch of **** that you cannot see. That was the most annoying bit.