JoeliusZ28

As the title states.... the rest of my post is more or less to spur discussion.

I just installed a set of new MSDs on my car today (my THIRD set of OTVC wires ) and I am looking for pointers. When i started my car initially, I wanted to drive the car straight into a pole. It was arcing, missing like crazy, and throwing all kinds of codes. however with some tweaking I now have it running MUCH better, and considerably better than the Taylors I had before. The problem exists under load at low RPMS. if i floored the car at any less than 2500 RPM (taylor wires) it would arc all over the place. It would not cruise around at low RPM either. It was absolutely unacceptable. now it appears I am good for down to about 1750 RPM floored(MSD)... a marked improvement but definitely not good enough considering this never happened with my original wires. and furthermore my MPG has never been the same since my original wires parted with the car.

I definitely have a decent ammount of corona glow going on at idle, but I managed to minimize a lot of it with a couple of zip ties and double checking my crimps. My taylor coil wire was glowing like CRAZY so I put the original Delco wire in (lucky i still had it) and that completely disappeared

Is there any especially good slip on insulation that can be bought in bulk? I dont even care if my engine bay looks like **** anymore I am BEYOND tired of spark plug wire issues. I am gonna check out home depot at the very least.

I also think my spark plugs are over-gapped, so tomorrow I am going to pull them out and gap them conservatively. If that *helps* I am probably going to take it a step further and run a cooler plug (have TR55s now with whatever gap they come with).

Thoughts?


EDIT: I also noticed some glow coming straight from my ignition coil. is it possible this needs replacement?

Injuneer

If your spark plugs are gapped too large, the wires will arc. Until you check the gap, further speculation on the cause of the problem is pointless. How old are the plugs? And you are saying you didn't check the gap before you installed them?

Guest47904

The coil that is used on these engines are considered a "tune-up" item and need to be replaced periodically. Look for tell tale signs of arcing on the coil indicated by white dots usually near the laminations.

I bought and never used MSD wires that appeared to me to be crap. I use and swear by Granatelli's. They use real wire, not carbon impregnated "string" and have a measurable "0" ohms of resistance. They're not cheap in any use of the word.

I see you mentioned you have a higher CR but didn't mention any aftermarket ignition. You do realize as compression goes up, it becomes harder to make spark?

Maybe you need a cap and rotor in addition to a new coil.

JoeliusZ28

I checked 2 or 3 of them and the were .06 like they were supposed to be. The rest I just tossed in. This was 2 years ago though, and ive read gap can widen over time. I didnt check them when I had the heads off, I was anxious to put it back together and admit I cut a corner there. (so plugs are about 2.5 years old, have about 9k miles on them)

The coil appears to be original and like I said, it was glowing pretty good in one particular spot. The car has a brand new opti, even though I apparently didnt need to replace that.

Guess I will have to check out Granatelli wire in the future. I completely agree with you about the quality, Im tired of replacing these things. I did a bunch of searching here but I was rushed to get it running this week for events, i never saw anything about Granatelli's.

Regarding the compression ratio, I didnt know that. This problem was just as bad before i did the swap, so i dont think that is affecting it any. I honestly cant even tell I added any compression, the car is behaved even on the stock tune still.

Javier97Z28

My high compression setup does just fine with stock ignition.. hell, I'm still running the stock 90k mile coil.

Dunno how long my opti will last at 6800 RPM.. but so far over 2k miles and 15-20 track passes.

Severous01

some resistance is good...clears up interferance.

other than just wanting 0 resistance, you could go with a higher output coil, but you'll still have problems.

talk to the guys that you bought your setup from and see what gap they suggest. i was fine with stock ignition setup on mine and i did a high compression 383. i ran stock replacement NGK plugs, msd wires, oem coil with 100k miles on it, stock opti with 100k miles on it.

what brand plugs you using? please dont say bosch...and i dont like champion personally. delco or ngk for me...only

JoeliusZ28

NGKs

Injuneer

0.060" sounds excessive for that setup. Most people will opt for an 0.035-0.040" gap with an engine capable of that performance. Could also use a colder than stock plug.... TR6 would be a better choice. I run anywhere from a 1/2-step colder AutoLite 104 gapped to 0.040" when I know I'm not running nitrous, to a Champion S57YC gapped 0.028-0.030" with the 300-shot.

Resistor plugs and spiral-wound wires are required to prevent RFI interfence with the PCM.

MSD 8.5 Super Conductors are the wires of choice at the shop that built my engine, including their 1000+HP LT1's, and their own 6-sec Pro 5.0. I've been running the same set for 8 years now, with no problems.

<Puck>

Agreed, way too high gap.

When I had my car dyno tuned my tuner recommended .035 for my 11:1 stock cube build up with tr55s. Just going down from .05 where they were down to .035 made a big difference in driveability and allowed him more freedom in tuning it. I can imagine .060 causing problems with very low resistance wires - the spark finds it easier to jump through the sleeve and onto anything else then the big gap in a high compression cylinder.

JoeliusZ28

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! ($^$#%^#!$%^()_#$*!!!!

Ive completely ****ing had it with this issue. New opti, new wires, new (different) plugs... SAME PROBLEM. I just wasted yet another 3 hours reducing the gap of my spark plugs (.045), as well as ensuring a better fit of the plug wires to the plugs and guess what!??! IT RUNS WORSE!!!

Ive been chasing this missfire for over a year now and I have wasted $250 in JUNK spark plug wires. My money would be better spent on gallon of gas to send this cursed thing to hell.

I CANNOT believe that it is SO hard to engineer something as simple as a ****ing wire.

apologize for making an *** out of myself but i am mad as hell right now

shoebox

Throw some stock, AC-Delco wires on it and see what happens.

JoeliusZ28

I wouldve done that already if they fit Im gonna have to come up with some creative way to make them work because there really is nothing else that is ever going to make this car run right.

I actually just added up everything I have spent on this problem and it infuriates me. Oxygen sensors, opti, 3 sets of wires, plugs, insulation - Im well over $600 already

wrd1972

Man this is nuts. I dont have any problems with MSD wires. My Delco plugs are gapped at .045" too. GM opti. MSC coil.

Try some Delco plugs.

SnakeOiler

Check your wires with an ohmmeter just to make sure that ALL of them are good. Sometimes you will get a bad wire in a set. Just check them so you can rule that out.

JoeliusZ28

it wouldnt surprise me if a couple of them got messed up in the installation. Getting those boots on is nearly impossible to do even with copious ammounts of dielectric grease.

Just one more reason OTVC is a bad idea.