When checking for arcing wires, it should light up pretty bad right? Bad enough to where you can see it from opening the hood and seeing a light show right? Because i was checking mine out tonight and I couldn't see any light at all unless I got almost right at eye level with them, and with the plugs I could see I saw some faint light, does that mean that the wires/plugs are arcing? Or are they just sparking and doing their job?

 

Your wires are definitely arcing then.

 

So I shouldn't see any light at all? Even if it looks like it's coming directly from the plug itself, and not the wire or boot?

 

Someone?

 

you should see no light., light = arching = bad.

the end

 

That's what I was affraid of. Alright well obviously these Taylor's aren't getting the job done, already had to replace one of them. What is a good, thick, heat resistant wire? Accel 9000?

 

actually i have taylors and they have worked perfect. Been about 6000 miles so far with no probs

 

I've had mine on for about 15 months, replaced one of them... now it looks like I have about 2-4 of them arcing. I'm going to go down to an Autozone or Napa or something and I want to know what a good replacement wire would be. If I can't find anything better than I'll just run with Taylor's again, but I think there's better stuff out there. All my plugs were changed 15 months ago and looked perfect when I installed my headers, so all I need are wires.

 

Sometimes you need to go to a really really really dark spot and then let your eyes adjust for a minute or two. I prefer a loading dock... it's dark and it allows me to do two checks:
1) Under hood
2) Under vehicle looking up at the opti and the wire routing

Sometimes it gets close to metal and arcs... it's a matter of routing the wires away from metal.

Did you put grease on your plugs (threads)? Some guys put dielectric on the threads. That is bad because a DiElectric prohibits electrical conductivity. Use the same type as prescribed for battery terminals.

Also, a blue "aura" is sometimes normal depending on plug. Do you have a MSD or Jacobs system with multiple sparks? Again, an aura is a faint blue hue that looks almost like plasma... not lightning bolts jumping from the plug to the block.

 

I have an MSD Blaster coil, though I am unfamiliar with wether or not it gives multiple sparks or not... it was installed before I bought the car. The blue aura you are describing sounds alot like what I saw, since I could only visually see 4 plugs, but 2 of them had heat shields, so i could only see 2 of them and they both appeared to be arcing. Also, the wires are routed away from the block and the only time they get close is when they connect to the plug.

 

I got the taylors also and they also seem to be arching in more then one place. I havn't been able to get up under teh car to check it out from that angle but i see some arching from the top. Something i'm gonna do is get the wire sleeves from either thunderracing (up to 1,200 degrees) or the ones from summit.

 

The blue glow around the base of the plug (corona discharge) is normal and should not be considered a problem. Arcing is a problem the corona discharge is not.

 

Ok, tonight I will check more thouroghly for arc, because now I'm not so sure what I saw, I'm pretty sure it was the glow though. I'm just concerned because I'm going to the track wednesday night for the first time and want to be prepared.