yes definatly lowering hte gap will help. Arcing is more likely the wider the plug gap, and also i've noticed that too much resistance (because of gap) will cause arcing at the coil like you described.

 

i completely understand why that would increase resistance, but why werent my stock wires arcing though? that doesnt make any sense.

 

this might seem to obvious but make sure that the spark plug boots are in the right order on the opti spark. starting from the bottom of the opti, the passenger side is like 2-8-6-4 and driver side is something like 1-7-3-5 (good thing i just put new wires in my buddies )

 

Do people experience these types of issues with the stock wires? Is this upgrade actually a downgrade? Are the MSD's better than the Taylor's? I seem to hear nothing but negatives when it comes to the Taylor wires, but positive experiences rarely prompt anyone to speak out.

 

My dad thinks he found it! I re-used the stock metal heat shields on the spark plug boots and he found that one of those metal boots was arcing on the header. He removed it (as well as the other ones) and its idling fine with no-backfiring. he's gonna go pull a holeshot w/it after dinner to make sure its good under load

 

yeah ditch those metal things

 

he took it for test drive, its good now hopefully this is the last of my problems.

 

Excellent! Good for him finding and eliminating the missfire!

I haven't been so fortunate. I added split looms, cleaned the ground to bare metal, and afterwards I finally caught a glimps of a couple actual sparks jumping to the AIR pipe. Not often, but 2-3 seen is enough that I'll try some new MSDs. The one area I could not separate the wires or see them is on the way down to the opti from the alternator, where it is very tight. I actually siliconed them in place there to reliably keep them off the P/S pulley. I need a remote-mounted night-vision lipstick cam in my toolbox!

BTW, I also found a couple of posts saying folks had no arcing with Taylors, and did with MSDs. But I think this is one of those things where all the evidence is bad. How many folks ever stare at their new wires in the dark, long and hard enough to find arcing, unless they have a missfire. And how many folks don't know that they even have a missfire.....I didn't, and still am not sure there is an actual misfire, but the light show got me worried. A missfire would explain my BLM issues.

Thanks for the follow up answer. I bet your dad will help on your car anytime if he gets to do holeshot test drives.

 

no problem! i totally hear ya on the bad evidence. you also dont hear anyone complaining about stock wires, because people just assume they need replacement when they have problems.

And yea i let my dad have some fun with the car now and then, I wouldnt have the car if he didnt let me borrow some cash to buy it four years ago

Im keeping my fingers crossed ill be ok, but if i have any problems ill be trying a different product.

oh by the way JP - the cable i got from AKM connected first try cant wait to play with that some more.

 

Great, you are on a roll now! That cable will get you into head-scratchin', tune-tweaking trouble real fast. All for the better. I'm addicted to mine. I scan constantly, and am on my 13th self-tune. Better get a $50 e-Bay laptop holder too, or make one. Typing on the driver's seat is dangerous.

 

haha definitely. im going to make myself wait until i got the car back home before i try messing with the tune, or ill get myself in another bad situation. I am however gonna do a bunch of logging in the meanwhile to see how its running on the factory tune. thanks for the help bro

 

well i got the car up at school now... its not fixed. Removing the heat shields fixed 90% of the problem, but i still have a stumble in the low RPMs (800-2000). The other thing thats weird is it happens by far the most when the engine is cold. It seems to start off running on 7 for the first 30 seconds, then it finds #8, and stumbles under throttle... and finally when its warm it 'seems' to run fine? I cant seem to replicate the problem when im looking under the hood either.

Ive about had it with this though, i bought these to have peace of mind and instead i got a headache. I think id have better luck with stock replacement wires (if i can find any the right length).

I havent replaced the coil wire yet (didnt have time and wanted to make sure the rest worked before i replaced that) . . . could any extra resistance from the new ones have cooked the original coil wire? I would think not, but figured id ask anyway.