ran into a big problem. didnt realize it, but when we ran wires on my buddy's LT1, the 8.5mm wires wouldnt fit onto the wire harness in the front passenger side of the block, causing the wires to lay on the tension pulley. the wires are getting rubbed raw. is there a way to prevent this? it seemed to be the only routing possible.. shouldnt MSD wires come with another bracket to fit their own wires?

 

There's room to run the wires below the power steering assembly to stay clear of the pulley. A couple of tie wraps will keep them out of harms way.

 

i think thats where they are at now.. there is a bolt head right where the wires wrap around the corner of the block that prevents it from being high enough to stay off the tensioner or low enough to stay away from the power steering.. is there a way to buy a spool of wire and route them yourself? ive heard longer wires causes too much resistance in the current?

 

I recently fitted MSD 8.5mm wires on my car.I removed the stock plastic loom from the passenger side block by the pulleys.You then have room to run the four passenger side wires behind that metal pipe and away from the pulleys.I then used nylon cable ties to hold everything in place.
That job was a pain in the a$$,but the wires have all been fine since,just use plenty of cable ties .

 

ok ill try that.. thanks alot. however one of the wires is split(the rubber is splitting, cant tell if there is bare metal). will electrical tape fix this? there feels to be no arching or grounding yet..

 

That's a good question,don't know if electrical tape would fix it permanently but it might be ok as a very temporary fix.A new wire would be a better solution,I'm pretty sure you can buy wires seperately it just might not match your other 7 MSD wires.You could always put one of the stock wires back on for a while.
Just out of interest how long did this job take you from start to finish?

 

actually the job itself took about 2 hours.. we didnt drop anything(ac compressor, starter, sway bar..) driver side we were done in 10 minutes, the pass side took us the rest of the time to work around that stuff.. prolly wouldve been longer if we did what u say to do with that bracket lol but it wouldve been worth it.. now itll just be more time to jack it up and get under it and remove that clamp or harness or whatever it is.

edit: how did u remove that anyway?

 

I just levered it off from the top with a flat bladed screwdriver,came away real easy. .
You guys are quicker than me,took me all afternoon to do that damn job,LOL.
The only thing I removed was the serpentine belt,to make life a little easier.
You hear of some guys removing all sorts of stuff,which I suppose would make life easier but then you have to put it all back on.
All the best,Mark .

 

Do not rely on electrical tape to insulate a wire that carries 30,000 volts... isn't going to help.

I've heard of people using a small grinder (Dremel) to open up the slots in the plastic wire holder, to allow the 8.5's to fit.

Using a slightly longer, low resistance, quality ignition wire is not going to provide an appreciable increase in the resistance of the wire, or hurt the voltage available to jump the gap on the plug. The key is to use the correct wire.

 

I installed my 8.5s over the weekend.It took about 3 hours with a couple of decent breaks.The looms on the passenger side were a pita to get out.Once those were gone I just used wire ties to secure them.It's tight but they are out of the way of the pulley.By the way MARK,I used your method of cutting the boot off and pulling them through the looms to remove the old wires.Good thinking!

 

Yeah, I thought that removing the old plastic looms was the worst part of the job,that and the fact that you have to crawl under your car for half a day.GM designers must have been having a laugh when they shoe-horned the LT1 motor into our cars.

 

I ran my wires between the block and the bracket(behind the bracket)



David