Plug Wires

[SlowGt]

Put on a set of Taylor Thundervolt 8.2 wires tonight and just thought I'd share the resistance measurements for those who've ever wondered. Both wires are 9" in length. The factory wires ranged from 1167-1193 ohms. The Taylor wires were 35.8 - 37.1 ohms.

 

GM factory plug wire:

 

Taylor Thundervolt 8.2mm:

[Carder09]

EEither you don't know Much about electrical things are you miss typed cause your meter is reading on factory wire 1.170k ohms, that k means that its not even an ohm, its like practically reading zero. So being that their is no resistance in the wire, your stock wires should be letting the current flow incredibly fast, as in no resistance. And your new wires are holding back. Not sure on how that plays well in firing the spark plug, but I know in some comps on the f-16, no resistance is a very good thing.

[[email protected]]

No, I think it says the stock are 1.170k ohms as in 1170 ohms whereas the aftermarkets are only 35.8 ohms. Huge difference, but performance wise not worth a dime. Now if it was a analog gauge with different ohm settings....

[SlowGt]

forgot to mention i also put in a fresh set of Autolite DP plugs. the wires really aren't worth much on the dyno, but they get an A+ for ignition efficiency. better ignition efficiency leads to better burn efficiency. and since my fuel economy is normally high 11s to low 12s, i'll take all the help i can get . plus these wires, when used with an otherwise healthy coil setup, will usually give an improvement in throttle response. not a snap your head back improvement, but enough to be noticeable. by 'usually' i mean this is my 4th set of these wires and it's been noticable in all 4 vehicles. the old wires had been in there for ~119k miles (119,000...not .119 miles ) and the crusty plugs around 45k. the best part of all is the price.

 

Autozone:

Bosch - $71.99 + tax

Duralast - $49.99 + tax

MSD - $118.99 + tax

 

Taylor wires dropped on my doorstep - $55

 

kind of a no brainer.

 

 

i think i'll save displaying my electrical knowledge for another thread...lol. suffice to say i can think of very few applications where minimal resistance is not preferred.

[[email protected]]

No one said minimal resistance wasn't good... But I will since you bring it up, minimal resistance is not generally best on a regular street driven computer controlled vehicle. You have to make your trade-offs between rfi and max spark.

[Krambo]

Taylors are spiral wound...No RFI to worry about for computer controlled vehicles. I only run Taylor, the fit is worth the $60 when you have long tube headers.

[[email protected]]

Ah, I was thinking normal graphite wires that don't really produce a big magnetic field to suppress the rfi. Nice truck, by the way.

[Krambo]

The "REAL" plug wires (true racing wires) do cause alot of noise like you mention. To the OP, here is a good link to explain what we are discussing here:

 

Spark plug wire FAQ

 

Hey thanks for the kind words on the truck...its for sale! LOL!

[tyhuck]

forgot to mention i also put in a fresh set of Autolite DP plugs. the wires really aren't worth much on the dyno, but they get an A+ for ignition efficiency. better ignition efficiency leads to better burn efficiency. and since my fuel economy is normally high 11s to low 12s, i'll take all the help i can get . plus these wires, when used with an otherwise healthy coil setup, will usually give an improvement in throttle response. not a snap your head back improvement, but enough to be noticeable. by 'usually' i mean this is my 4th set of these wires and it's been noticable in all 4 vehicles. the old wires had been in there for ~119k miles (119,000...not .119 miles ) and the crusty plugs around 45k. the best part of all is the price.

 

Autozone:

Bosch - $71.99 + tax

Duralast - $49.99 + tax

MSD - $118.99 + tax

 

Taylor wires dropped on my doorstep - $55

 

kind of a no brainer.

 

 

i think i'll save displaying my electrical knowledge for another thread...lol. suffice to say i can think of very few applications where minimal resistance is not preferred.

 

 

Ide like to see some hard MPG numbers on these if you dont mind. My truck is only a couple thousand miles from the 100K maintenance routine and I am always looking for something that will actually help performance and gas mileage. Most of that crap will either hurt your engine, or just drain your wallet.

[desrtrat]

anyone know the ohm reading on stock out of the box Delco wires? and not ones with over 100k in them.

 

thanks

[[email protected]]

Mine were only around 500-600 ohm when I changed them with about 125k on them. The new ones were around 300 ohms.

[tyhuck]

So whats the general census around here on changing the wires at 100K. Is it a necessity, or just replace as they wear out?

[[email protected]]

I'd take one off and read it with an ohm meter then go from there because plug wire life is gonna vary vehicle to vehicle. I believe I could've easily got 200k out of my stockers.

[508gm1]

EEither you don't know Much about electrical things are you miss typed cause your meter is reading on factory wire 1.170k ohms, that k means that its not even an ohm, its like practically reading zero. So being that their is no resistance in the wire, your stock wires should be letting the current flow incredibly fast, as in no resistance. And your new wires are holding back. Not sure on how that plays well in firing the spark plug, but I know in some comps on the f-16, no resistance is a very good thing.

 

 

The k indicates a multiplier of 1000 from the base reading of an ohm.

 

1G ohm - 1,000,000,000 ohm

1M ohm - 1,000,000 ohm

1k ohm - 1,000 ohm

1 ohm - 1 ohm

1m ohm - .001 ohm

1u ohm - .000001 ohm

1n ohm - .000000001 ohm

 

Just for anyone's information, not trying to be a smart ass

 

Cheers, Brendan

[nickvrebel]

So whats the general census around here on changing the wires at 100K. Is it a necessity, or just replace as they wear out?

as a rule of thumb I change wires at the 100,000 mile mark. the wires will deteriorate and start getting cracks like any other rubber item. The will eventually start arcing through those cracks and it's not worth the trouble. Plus a lot of the time when removing sparkplug wires for the first time in 100,000 miles to change the sparkplugs the wires break so it's easier to just be prepared and replace them at that time.

 

as stated above, the longevity will vary from one vehicle to another. This is just my general rule.