Spark plug wires

[AUSMHLY]

What's the low down on spark plug wires?

Do they really make a difference?

I heard of using bumble bee wire. I guess that wire runs hotter? What's the advantage?

I was told that to use copper wire. (I guess it's in strands, not available in solid anymore).

I noticed that even though all my wires are black, some are not the same. A couple of the wires are a little bit larger in diameter with a softer rubber than the other 4. Who knows if the number of wire strands inside are the same. (All wires seem to have silver colored strands)

Your thoughts? Could my present situation affect my performance?

Cheers,
Roger

 

[Ed_K]

Hello Roger,

What kind of wires are you using now ( stranded wire, carbon)?
Is you car running Ok ?
Are you noticing any whining or popping noises in your music ?
Did you install a high output coil ( 40kv )with your Petronix ?
If you have a high output coil, I would recommend Bosch platinum plugs gapped to .035 " and a set of Magnecore
ignition wires. Other's opinions may vary but those Magnecore
wires completely eliminated ALL of the noise from my speakers plus the car runs very well. Here is the URL;
https://www.magnecor.com/magnecor1/main.htm

Ed

 

[Randy Harris]

Roger, as you know I have had Bumble Bee dist. wires for years. To be honest I haven't noticed any difference in their performance over the previous (OEM black)wires they replaced. I just bought them to dress up the engine compartment when I
did the resto.

Are you noticing degraded engine performance or fouling of your plugs?

Randy

 

[AUSMHLY]

Hello Roger,

What kind of wires are you using now ( stranded wire, carbon)?
Stranded wire.
Is you car running Ok ?
Seems to.
Are you noticing any whining or popping noises in your music ?
No.
Did you install a high output coil ( 40kv )with your Petronix ?
Yes.
If you have a high output coil, I would recommend Bosch platinum plugs gapped to .035 " and a set of Magnecore
ignition wires. Other's opinions may vary but those Magnecore
wires completely eliminated ALL of the noise from my speakers plus the car runs very well. Here is the URL;
https://www.magnecor.com/magnecor1/main.htm

What is the normal gap? Does a platimum plug require a .035 gap?

Ed

 

[tahoe healey]

You may want to check the resistance on each wire with an ohm meter. If some are fatter than others you may not have the same type wire in each. You will produce a different spark in each cyl. This is a real cheap fix. I've often woundered about that with different lengths of wire. I changed mine at Keoekes suggestion a couple of years ago and it smoothed out the engine. (Maybe only in my head)

 

[Ed_K]

Tahoe is right about different resistance wires causing different spark energy and that is not normally a good situation. It applies a lot more to stranded carbon wires that can break down from the engine heat over time.
But in your case, with stranded metal wires, they all should be darn close to zero ohms, especially if your car is running right. If you have a mismatched set of ignition wires, it is possible that you have a combination of both types of wires. Some folks just install a carbon wire from the coil to the distributor cap to eliminate radio noise. Something else to worry about with old wires is that the insulation on the wires will tend to break down over time and the spark voltage will " leak " out of the wires to ground. If your car always runs poorly after driving through water, that would be one of the things to check.
If you just want to " dress it up " some more by getting new consistent sized wires AND you are not getting any ignition noise out of your speakers, get some of those bumblebee or a plain black set of stranded copper wires from Napa auto parts. Before I did that, I would ohm each old wire to verify that they are all really stranded metal wire. If any are 5k to 10k ohms then you have a combination of wire types and if you install all stranded metal wires, you may get the electric spark noises in your now nice and quiet music system .
Others opinions may vary but who cares about them anyway .
/bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/banana.gif
Ed

 

[Dave Russell]

Considering that the distributor rotor to cap air gap & the spark plug air gap have many thousands of Ohms resistance, it's not likely that a few hundred or few thousand Ohms resistance in the plug wires will have a noticeable effect on spark intensity.

Some spark plugs even have built in resistor gaps. Resistance, or inductance, where ever it is located, is used on all modern engines to reduce radiated noise to radios & such equipment.

Spiral wound metal wire cores accomplish the same because the spiral winding has inductance at high frequencies which reduces the radiated electrical noise.

The cheaper carbon core wires reduce the noise but are more likely to break internally & fail.
D

 

[Ed_K]

Hi Dave,
You are of course right.
For the average Joe trying to figure out if any of his ignition wires are acting up, a check of each with an ohm meter will quickly point out the ones that are out of the ball park as compared to the others and more than likely need attention. A good test of carbon wires would be to bend them while connected to the ohm meter to see if the resistance goes way up thus showing the marginal wires. If someone has a mismatched set of wires and didn't realize it, the ohm meter will reveal that also. But you are right that a mismatched set of wires will run fine in most circumstances if all are in good shape.
Bye the way, I do care about your opinion. I was trying to insert a little humor in my previous post.
/bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/jester.gif
Ed

 

[Ed_K]

I had to make another post right away to change my post count to 667. Didn't want to leave it at the previous count. Call me superstitious .