coil pack arcing problem

[slick30thanniversary]

Hey guys,

I'm kind of new here, I used to post a long time ago and I'm just now coming back. I've got a 30th Anniversary Trans Am, and I've suddenly developed a problem. I was at a fairly big annual car cruise in port huron, michigan, and the car was running great. All of a sudden the car started running really rough, misfiring, and I pulled over to inspect and found that one plug wire had come off the coil pack. After getting it back on the coil pack and restarting I found that there were sparks arcing from pretty much every coil pack on that side of the engine going directly to the valve cover or the coil pack bracket. It looks very random and seems to be coming from the wire connections as the wire loom hooks into each coil pack. All my bolts appear to be tight, what am I missing? Is there a ground cable that could have come unhooked or something? The driver side isn't doing this. The car ran horribly after that and the service engine light came on.

Thanks in advance for anyone who may know what to look for.

[Steve Crowe]

Chances are it's only one of the coil packs and it hasn't damaged the other ones.

Get a strong flashlight, pull the wires one at a time and look the coils over very carefully for hairline cracks, whitish deposits &/or burned looking places.