Borg Warner ignition wires

[Sergei]

Its not really performance i am after. I dont really hope to gain any horses over it. What i am really looking for are:
- better fuel combustion. More power i can get to spark plug, longer arc i can create. Lower resistance shall be key to that one. As well as properly gapped spark plugs. Despite all the propaganda of weird geometry spark plugs, its actually not good to let discharge select optimal route, b/c fuel burns only as good as initial arc is. Longer arc - better combustion. If you look at all spark plugs we getting "preset" from factory - they all have smallest possible gap.
- better electricity usage. I dont want to waste ampers on overcoming resistance of those wires. Generally i hope that it will prolong life of generator a bit. And if generator snuffs it - can longer run on battery Which is currently my exact situation.

Unfortunately electrical system of most of british tracks is hardly high powered. Its known to be pretty whimpy, with very weak spark.

But you right - if its cracking down, no matter how fat or low resistant your wires are - it will all be pointless.

But then - i am not electrician

All this hunting for Snark were result of trying to resolve stalling/starting gremlins. And trying to get truck to run ok, while alternator is missing in action.

 

[LRWheelman]

Hello Sergei, I'm not sure, but I think I have a set of them B/W's on my RV. The engine is in such a hole that I hardly see them @ all. They have worked great ever since I installed em'. They were probably the only decent wire available "over the counter" when I "tooonned up" the RV 4 or 5 years ago, of course trying to increase my fuel economy also. (I would like to get it up to a consistant 7 mpg) I do have the Taylor P/# around here somewhere if You need it. Thank You, LRW.

 

[fivespddisco]

Sergie you may be on the wrong track. a larger wire 8mm should give you more resitance on you DC meter. (I need to dubble check that, but i am pretty shure. )the hi voltage coming from the truck is running on the out side strands of wire. the more strands you have the EZer time the curent will have. as far as the power from the truck it is giving you X amount of power per time. i dont think you can save you battery at all with differnt wires. the truck is going to use the same amount of power. i would look at any point there is a conection. that is the weakest spot. wire to plug or wire to cap. put electric grease on them to help.

good luck.

 

[Sergei]

Justin - well yes, normally if you compare same material - thicker wire will have more resistance. So you totally correct, Justin.
But thing is - thinner wire - less power it can withstand.
Now - i actually got jacobs system which presumably got adaptive powerpack with it, that allegedly adapts per spark plug. No clue how, i assume its possible to measure throutput of one cycle in slices. Considering thing also has RPM limiter - it shall do something like that. Plus its delivering more power (i can attest to that after looking at distributor cap ). So i needed thicker wire, but with lower resistance so powerpack wont go overboard trying to give me good ignition

Its all kind of messed around, but in general it means that power delivered by system isnt really direct function of RPMs , but it also customized per wire. Thats why i keep
this whole thing around

Lonnie - if its not too much trouble, please do tell p# for taylors. I want to fiddle with ignition system some more, just for the heck of it. Plus it takes my busy hands off other parts of truck

 

[sydeem]

I believe you might find that thicker wire has less resistance than thinner wire but I doubt that is the problem. The spark is a very short duration pulse so vary probably travels on the skin of the wire rather than through the wire as a DC current would. For this reason I think the wire with the largest cross section would be the wire with the least resistance to the pulse.

 

[RoverChic]

I second Taylor Wires.. Every time I get around my uncle and his pit crew they rave about Taylor on his Camero Racing Car(s)...I asked him about Magnacor he said he had no idea..But his engine is weird. The wires are individual not the same as my Rover.

 

[redrover51]

I will change my wires and plugs when I see an "under the hood light-show' at night....or get a shakey idle. Right now, I am using Accels, and they are doing the job. 8mm wires with a quality coating and plug jacket are what works for me.

 

[ayavner]

a larger wire will have less resistance (just like a larger pipe would have less resistance to water flow - same principle). I don't think you can gain any useful info by measuring resistance, i believe the key measurement here (since frequency is an issue as well) is impedance... very similar to resistance, but more representative of what occurs on the wire while current is flowing at a given frequency... resistance is only a static measurement, taken while no current is flowing - indeed, you will wreck most ohmmeters if you take a resistance measurement with current flowing. there are formulae around for calculating impedance, given other factors such as voltage, current, etc but I don't remember them... i would bet the manufacturer's website would have specs on that tho... It may very well turn out that the ones that appear to have higher "resistance" actually perform better when other factors such as current and frequency are taken into account. that make any sense at all?

 

[sydeem]

Well said. When I made my comment I was reaching far back in memory regarding electromagnetics. Since then I have found Magnecor which does have a site that goes into extensive detail on ignition wire physics. Well worth the read if you have the time

http://www.magnecor.com/magnecor1/main.htm

A couple of paragraphs follow:

"Low-resistance" conductors are an easy sell, as most people associate all ignition wire conductors with original equipment and replacement ignition wire carbon conductors (which progressively fail as a result of microscopic carbon granules burning away and thus reducing the spark energy to the spark plugs) and with solid wire zero-resistance conductors that were used by racers with no need for suppression. Consumers are easily led into believing that if a spiral conductor's resistance is almost zero, its performance must be similar to that of a solid metal conductor all race cars once used. HOWEVER, NOTHING IS FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!

What is not generally understood (or is ignored) is that as a result of the laws of electricity, the potential 45,000 plus volts (with alternating current characteristics) from the ignition coil (a pulse type transformer) does not flow through the entire the length of fine wire used for a spiral conductor like the 1 volt DC voltage from a test ohmmeter, but flows in a magnetic field surrounding the outermost surface of the spiral windings (skin effect). The same skin effect applies equally to the same pulsating flow of current passing through carbon and solid metal conductors.

 

[LRWheelman]

Sergei, Here's the P/N for Taylor wires, off the box they came in 073253 and it says as the description; Spiro-Pro Univ 8 cyl 135D Red. I noticed the date on the box was 5/28/02, but they should still be the same. Good Luck, LRW.