Out of curiosity, I checked the resistance of my old plug wires with my multimeter..set it to 200 ohms. Got a reading of 00.2 on the display.. I don't know any of the conversions...is this good or bad for plugwires? I believe the length was about 1 ft.

 

the less resistance there is the stronger the charge of electricity will be, 00.2 ohms would be like 20ohms per foot I believe
were as accel's yellow wires have 50 ohms of resistance per foot

hope that helps

 

I was thinking like 20 myself but that doesnt make sense... MSD's dont even get 20 I think. And these are like $30 Champion wires...copper core, not spiral or anything, and only 7mm's.

 

Solid copper core wires flow better than spiral core wires. They are used for al out race vehicles that generally don't rely on any computer controls because they produce feedback. You are probably getting noise on your radio with those wires.

 

I'm sure I am..these ones on here now might even be worse. My radio SUCKS...it's all statickey and I have to crank it up insanely loud to hear anything. And these wires are a bunch of straight copper strands pressed together.

 

It was probably 2000 ohms. How long was the wire? General rule is that 3000-4000 ohms per foot is acceptable. Any higher and the wire is junk.

 

I run Taylor 409's on mine. They are 10.4mm spiral core race wires They aren't cheap though. 375ohms per ft.

Taylor also make a wire I believe called the thunder50- 5o ohms per ft. and spiral core.

 

Cali, it was about a foot long I think. And AF...I've got Taylor 8mm blue spiralcores on order now to replace these Belden 7mm junk wires.

 

The part on any wire that dies first is always the boot. I also run the 1200* mesh boot sleeves to protect them for the exhaust manifold. Taylor 8mm are a great wire, if you further protect the boot they will last forever

 

If you are running these on your '91 with an ECM they will be trouble (don't know of a better way to put it). For cars with electronics around you need to run a supression wire. Solid coppers are great for non-ECM cars & CDI ignitions. I used to do it all the time. Actually I used the stainless steel wires as the copper would rapidly corrode.

If you have a PepBoys around get the Borg-Warner Select wires. Should be under $30US. These are really decent wires. Spiral core with killer crimps and a tough (for silicone) jacket.

RBob.

P.S. The reading of .2 on the 200 ohm scale is just that: 0.2 ohms. It would be lower but that is the resistance of the lead set on the DVM (touch the leads together to get the 'zero' reading).

 

Bob..can wires like that pick up enough radio interference to cause a rough idle? And..how can that length of wire be only like 0.2 ohms..I mean, that's damn near zero resistance! I stripped the wire at 1 foot and connected directly to it at one end, and to the spark plug terminal at the other end. There's gotta be some sort of conversion..I know Tom said it before but for the life of me I can't remember the post....we had a discussion on multimeters after I had just bought mine... Oh well. I was just curious to see if they were decent or not. The distributor terminals are CRAP though..they don't clip on very securely, and instead of making a solid connection all around with a cylinder-type terminal, it's a U terminal...so it makes a good solid connection at like 4 points and the rest is debatable...plus half the U clips didn't want to clip on.

And as I said earlier in the post, I've got Taylor 8mm spiralcores on order now, RB.

 

Heh, all of my multimeters just have one available Ohm setting.

If the reading is under 1000 Ohms it will say 768.4 Ohms for example.

If it's over 1000 Ohms it will read 14.7K Ohms for example.

If it's over 1,000,000 Ohms it will read 2.3M Ohms for example.

 

Yeah mine's got a buttload of settings, going from 20M ohms to 200 ohms....it's crazy. Thing's worth $80 but I picked it up for $15. Tom actually pointed it out to me! Lol..I was gonna buy some store multimeter for the same price that wasnt even digital..this one is digital and measures resistance, volts, dwell and rpms on the tach....

 

You should be good with the Taylor's. They are supposed to be a decent wire set. And spiralcores are better then the carbon core sets.

As for the current wires, they are just a wire, no suppression at all. This means that they radiate all kinds of RFI which can/will interfere with other electronic equipment.

RBob.

 

Shoulda gone to sears. I needed a meter for at-home usage so I found a Craftsman meter for $20. It's pocket size with digital display and it has all the good stuff.

Auto ranging
VDC
VAC
OHMs
Diode Tester
Capacitance
Duty Cycle
Ampmeter AC/DC
Farenheit
Celcius

 

Daaaaang.....

 

RBob..yeah, I understand that they send out radio interference and crap that can mess with all your electronics...but can electronics, radio signals, etc. mess with the spark transmission in the wire? Just curious whether it goes both ways...

 

Not in this case. The firing of plugs takes a lot of energy that is difficult to over ride with EMI or RFI from another source. So coupling enough interference into the plug wires in order to fire a plug is almost impossible.

It can happen that lousy plug wires can couple between each other. Burned or cut wires, insulation that is starting to break down, moisture, no spacing between wires can all contribute to this happening.

RBob.

 

Ok.. Right...thats called crossfiring right? I know wires can leech from eachother when they're too close..sometimes even firing the wrong cylinder.. Sparks can also jump between distributor cap terminals if they're poorly insulated... Do spiralcores inherently put out less EM and RF interference just because of the core design? That's what I'm guessing..coupled with the insulation too... You know, I gotta buy some plug boot shields before I put my new plugs on...I dont have the original heat shields. Car didnt have them when I got it.. I dont want my boots getting screwed up. On my old wires, the top of the boot split and the side of the boot is ripping open.. I'm guessing its a combination of poor construction and materials, and excessive manifold heat.