I gently zip tied my plug wires together and routed them along the side and backside of the motor, is that ok? They're 8mm Taylor wires...

 

Yes and no. They should be fine in the time being, but they definitely aren't supposed to even touch eachother. Go get some wire looms.
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btw are those coated 2055s?

 

i definatly agree, i wouldn;t have them directly touching each other, i would go get a set of wire seperators or something to keep them apart

 

I've used zip ties for years and years... BUT.. you should have the one around them all loose, then ziptie the ziptie in between each wire, then tighten the original and trim. They don't look half bad and are easy as **** to do in the pits.

 

the prob. i see is that they are rubbing each other now and will wear and start arcing to each other or other things

 

How will they rub if the zip tie(s) have them tight to eachother?

 

i use zipties, they work great, i hope it isnt a problem using them, i have had em ziped for about a month now and no problems yett, i use 8.5mm msd wires

 

As i have always been told, you do not want to wires that are consecutive in the firing order to be touching. Principles of induction tell us this is a bad thing.

 

I used a ziptie to keep a single OEM plug wire from touching the exhaust manifold once (think it was #8). It was kinda close but I was at the track and I wanted to have fun. At the end of the day I saw that it had melted off and damaged the wire. So I guess take the engine/exhaust heat into consideration when routing the wires and placing the ties and stuff.

 

Having multiple wires zip tied together is not a good idea, you runa high chance of misfiring running it like that.

If plug wires have to touch each other they should run at a 90* angle to each other to reduce the risk of them doing whacky things to each other!

 

I've been told you can zip them with spacers. Try to follow along, i'm gonna get real confusing. take 2 wires and zip-tie around the 2, but leave it loose. then with a new tie, go around the 1'st tie, making the 1'st tie look like a figure 8 around the wires, being squeezed by the 2nd tie.Tighten them together, and it should hold the wires , but spaced apart the thickness of the 2nd tie. This meathod can be repeated to hold all of the wires.

On the other hand, you could spend $1.99 anywhere for cheepie wire seperators.

 

Yes, the headers are hooker 2055...I was hoping i could keep the wires tie wrapped b/c i thought they looked better, instead of being separated and taking up more room...i think I'll drive the car for a bit and see if there's any problems...there'a a chance that the tie wrap could melt due to the heat, so I'll keep my eyes on it

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You don't want them all bundled together. I was a tad bored so I set this up:

Zip tie plug wires properly

I'll keep it up for a couple days. Pardon the background etc., I was lazy and just used my template. Quick and crude, but it gives you a better idea than my earlier crappy explanation.

 

red devil, you missing a few pictures on that site? Looks intriguing though.

 

I was not able to view any of your pictures...could you try it again?
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shouldn't the thicker sheith (8mm) prevent signal interference? How thick would the wires have to be to tie them together?

 

Well after reading this thread, I have decided to go untie my wires.

 

Ut-oh. How many pics came up? All five show on both my machines. IE or firefox? Dis inna good!!!

Sheeet! I just tried on firefox and nothing is coming up. IE works, I'll have to figure out why and try again.

The 8mm should provide adequate insulation, but they'll still rub and degrade the wire.
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Try again, I think I got it.

 

Working on firefox now thanks for the pics, looks good. I'll have to try it now

 

From my understanding, the problem isn't that they rub each other, its a matter of induced current.

 

DING! Whenever electricity passes through a conducter it induces a magnetic field around said conductor. When wires are running parallel to each other, the fields will interfere. Electromagnetic Interference can cause real problems. Use wire looms and keep them seperated.

 

With new wires you typically won't have an issue, it's after they age or the 'wrapping' deteriorated somehow, like rubbing, does the situation become exacerbated, otherwise you'd have misfiring/crossfiring motors from every half-assed install ever done... and I've seen some doozies! Not that there aren't issues, but it's not at all as drastic as people have read about.

 

I dont get it, I used zip ties to separate my wires and I have been driving like that for 5 months problem free.

 

i wish i would think about my phsycis class more often when working on the car, the wrapping the wires together can become a problem but is not huge in my oppinion, the magnetic field created by the current passing through the wire can mess with the field of another current in another wire, it shouldnt be a big problem because this field disipates as soon as the current is gone, since the wires you are wrapping together do not carry current at the same time, i dont think its too bad.

but i would change it if the engine sees a lot of higher rpm use because current is flowing more often in the wires and much closer together.

 

exactly. The plugs only fire momentarily, and any induced current wont have a place to go (without jumping the plug gap). I'm not worried, until the induced current becomes strong enough to jump tha gap due to the age of the wires

 

noise in your stereo is usually the big concern.

 

well, i haven't ran the car yet with the wires like that, so I'll keep my eye on it and see if there's any issues. If there is any problems, i will rewire them like the example that RED DEVIL provided in his post, Thanks.

 

also isn't the strength of the magnetic field in relation to the amount of current that runs through the system? now honestly how much current really flows through these wires?

 

Cruisn, the main problem is the wires rubbing/shifting against each other. This will degrade the coating. Well, that and neatness. After spending time cutting and crimping wires, I like to finish the job with the zip method and matching colors, or reamed stock seperators.

As for the inductance issues... I'll give you one hint: Look at the firing order. There is one place where issues will arise before others.

 

Does anyone care that this is really the distributor end and not the plug end?

 

I'm trying to play nice, I wasn't going to mention it... or the other one(s).

 

I didn't notice that...will it make a difference (besides looks)?

They're all in the same way...i put the red boots on the Distributer...is that a problem?