RHILL

I'm going to replace my plugs and wires and would like some advice on types.


Sorry if this is a dupe :crazy:
:cheers:

Thanks
RAY

chuckster

Taylors and NGK R55. Doing mine Tomorrow
http://www.speeddemonmotorsports.com/1FrameC5.htm

bparker

Anyone try the NGK Iridium plugs yet? I am using the NGK TR55s now..

Avanti

As long as the heat range and reach are correct, it doesn't matter that much. More an emotional issue with some than an empirical one. In fact, most of the plug wires sold by scads of companies is all the same. There are only a few wire manufacturers from which the many distributors buy. Many tests of plug types and wires have been done by magazines, testing firms, etc. Bottom line is no consistent performance gains :yesnod: Wish that significant performance gains were as easy to obtain as many vendors would like us to believe.

Paul Scarpelli

VERY well spoken! A different spark plug will not increase horsepower, unless the old stock plugs were worn or gapped improperly. (It's different on a modified engine, though...) And aftermarket plug wires offer absolutely no improvement in performance and they may not fit as well...but them thar bright red wires sure are purdy! geh-HYULK!! :rolleyes:

C5Cemo

I agree 100% w/ Avanti and Paul. Well put guys.

The only time someone sees a gain is when something's wrong with one of the old parts, like one of the titanium pucks fallen off the stock POS plugs.


[Modified by C5Cemo, 8:34 AM 11/22/2001]

XTrooper

I don't know about being the "best" or not, but I like and use Bosch Platinum +4s. They last a good long time, you don't have to gap them, and they sell for around $6 apiece.

RHILL

Thanks Guys :cheers:

LoneStarFRC

:yesnod: Yup, same here! :yesnod:

Gary2KC5

I just order some LT headers and an X pipe. The vendor recommended getting a heavier set of wires to prevent the headers from melting the stick wires, but when I asked if I should replace the stock plugs while we were there, and he said no.

ddawson

bparker,

I'm using them. No problems after 9 months.

kewlbrz

I would disagree with avanti on one point about choosing a good plug to increase performance, and that is detonation.

A copper plug like the TR55 with its large copper core is the ultimate for smooth efficient heat dissapation. This avoids hot spots and detonation which robs performance.

A platinum plug primary focus is longevity. The one issue with the GM pieces is the platium pucks commonly pop off on the outer electrode.



The price of using TR55's is that you must replace on a quicker interval.

The iridium plug is a new type of plug but follows along the same lines as longevity. Since iridium is even harder than platinum, the center electrode can be made thinner on the end to produce a more violent spark. This actually reduces the life span some what to that of platium plugs, but provides a better spark.

The issue with a plugs gap and spark ability is important as it relates to a combustion chamber design, and flow characterisics. The more performance you make, the more viloent the turbulance is in the chamber. This can actually blow out the spark to soon. That is why you want to gap your plugs less with more power your making.

Regarding heat range. The hotter your temps in the chamber the colder range of plug you want to use. Too hot of a plug heat range however, and you can melt the plug, and cause pre ignition. To cold of a range, and you can foul out the plug, due to it not cleaning itself.

Regarding the factory packard wires. The wire coating is not conducive to sustained heat and promotes breakdown of the entire wire, in performance and competition applications. Most especially where headers are used.

An aftermarket quality silicon wire will deal with high temps quite well.

I have tried may wires, and most are junk. I've even dissected a few and gone so far as to count the winding per inch, and unspool the windings and measure them.

I have found the magnecor wires to be the ultimate wire for a plethora of reasons. They use the factory plug boot which greatly reduces the risk of tearing the boot off like with many other plug wires.. They also use the most windings per inch of any wire I have seen. 200 per inch. They are microscopically wound, and dont use resistive enhancing coating like most other manufactuers because of such tight windings. When a performance test is done on wires it is typically flawed from the beginning. It's total and complete BS to simply compare resistance values of wires. When you send 30 or 40K volts down a plug wire, unique physical things happen like skin effect which can not be tested by a simple voltohm meter. In laymens terms skin effect is when electrons are moving so rapidly through a conductor resistance increases exponentially, and the electrons shear outward to the skin on the conductor, as the middle cannot be traversed.

The resistive enhancing coating manufactuers put on the conductor "mimic" the effect of low resistance, and for simple tests "appears" like a good wire. Dont be fooled however. Because the coating breaks down over time and causes arcing between the windings which increases EMI and noise and reduces the performance of the wire.

In the following picture I have taken apart the taylor 8mm wire.
The Taylor wires use about 80 windings per inch.
On the far right is a stock wire.

SnowyATX

See >> http://forums.corvetteforum.com/zerothread?id=157254

ScreaminDemon

Thanks for taking the time to do that very informative post!! :cheers: I have heard to avoid platinum plugs when running nitrous, is this correct, and if so, what plugs should be run? :seeya

kewlbrz

The plug to go with when running nitrous is the copper TR6. Its the same as the TR55, except its gap is smaller, and is one step colder.

bparker

kewlbrz, what is your take on the new NGK Iridium plug?
I know copper disipates heat much better, however I had read that the new NGK Iridium plug gave you the best of both worlds, longevity and great heat disipation. The NGK article that I read claimed that it was the "perfect" plug due to its small durable electrode it uses.

kewlbrz

Brent, iridium is bascially one the hardest metals there is. Its a product, if you will, of platium. This extreme hardness is taken advantage of so that a very thin center electrode tip can be designed so that you get a viloent spark, while at the same time it doesnt wear down so rapidly. Since iridium is so hard, its hardly mallable and is hard to work with. Current technology allows this at a reasonable price, and is why we are now seeing these type of plugs.

Copper is and always will be the optimal conductor of electricity in real world applications, and will always be optimal in dissapating heat smoothly and efficiently.(silver is a very slightly better conductor, but corrodes and is too soft). Gold is #3 on the list of conductivity, and is only sought after for its ability to not corrode. It is also highly mallable.

The edge in performance still goes to the TR55 plug with the need to replace 3 times as much over platium and twice as much over iridium.

Look at plugs in a preventative performance loss catagory.

I dont see spark delivery as an issue at all with todays 40K volt ignition systems. So expensive plats or iridiums are more of a marketing thing than anything, coupled with their longevity.

To me it comes down to heat dissapation, and overall physical design. Sometimes at the sacrifice of more often replacement.




[Modified by kewlbrz, 12:02 AM 11/25/2001]

oceanaire

Question. I had a set of Nology wires which came with Beru plugs. I installed them, but had to remove the Nology's when I installed a MAFT because of interference. I left the Beru plugs in. Should I have replaced the Beru's with my stocks? Am I losing power? What plug should I use?

kewlbrz

The Beru and Nology capacitive appraoch is complete and utter hogwash.

Save your money.

The Beru plugs are non resistive type plugs. I would not use them. Get some TR55's or TR55ix plugs in there.

The most notable of exaggerated claims for ignition wires are made by Nology, a recent manufacturer of ignition wires promoted as "the only spark plug wires with built-in capacitor." Nology's "HotWires" (called "Plasma Leads" in the UK) consist of unsuppressed solid metal or spiral conductor ignition wires over which braided metal sleeves are partially fitted. The braided metal sleeves are grounded via straps formed from part of the braiding. Insulating covers are fitted over the braided metal sleeves. These wires are well constructed. For whatever reason, Nology specifies that non-resistor spark plugs need to be used with their "HotWires." In a demonstration, the use of resistor plugs nullifies the visual effect of the brighter spark.

Ignition wires with grounded braided metal sleeves over the cable have come and gone all over the world for (at least) the last 30 years, and similar wires were used over 20 years ago by a few car makers to solve cross-firing problems on early fuel injected engines and RFI problems on fiberglass bodied cars — only to find other problems were created. The recent Circle Track Magazine (USA, May, 1996 issue) test showed Nology "HotWires" produced no additional horsepower (the test actually showed a 10 horsepower decrease when compared to stock carbon conductor wires).

The perceived effect a brighter spark, conducted by an ignition wire, encased or partially encased in a braided metal sleeve (shield) grounded to the engine, jumping across a huge free-air gap (which bears no relationship to the spark needed to fire the variable air/fuel mixture under pressure in a combustion chamber) is continually being re-discovered and cleverly demonstrated by marketers who convince themselves there's monetary value in such a bright spark, and all sorts of wild, completely un-provable claims are made for this phenomena.

Like many in the past, Nology cleverly demonstrates a brighter free-air spark containing useless flash-over created by the crude "capacitor" (effect) of this style of wire. In reality, the bright spark has no more useful energy to fire a variable compressed air/fuel mixture than the clean spark you would see in a similar demonstration using any good carbon conductor wire. What is happening in such a demonstration is the coil output is being unnecessarily boosted to additionally supply spark energy that is induced (and wasted) into the grounded braided metal sleeve around the ignition wire's jacket. To test the validity of this statement, ask the demonstrator to disconnect the ground strap and observe just how much energy is sparking to ground.

Claims by Nology of their "HotWires" creating sparks that are "300 times more powerful," reaching temperatures of "100,000 to 150,000 degrees F" (more than enough to melt spark plug electrodes), spark durations of "4 billionths of a second" (spark duration is controlled by the ignition system itself) and currents of "1,000 amperes" magically evolving in "capacitors" allegedly "built-in" to the ignition wires are as ridiculous as the data and the depiction of sparks in photographs used in advertising material and the price asked for these wires! Most stock ignition primaries are regulated to 6 amperes and the most powerful race ignition to no more than 40 amperes at 12,000 RPM.

It is common knowledge amongst automotive electrical engineers that it is unwise to use ignition wires fitted with grounded braided metal sleeves fitted over ignition cable jackets on an automobile engine. This type of ignition wires forces its cable jackets to become an unsuitable dielectric for a crude capacitor (effect) between the conductor and the braided metal sleeves. While the wires function normally when first fitted, the cable jackets soon break down as a dielectric, and progressively more spark energy is induced from the conductors (though the cable jackets) into the grounded metal sleeves, causing the ignition coil to unnecessarily output more energy to fire both the spark plug gaps and the additional energy lost via the braided metal sleeves. Often this situation leads to ignition coil and control unit overload failures. It should be noted that it is dangerous to use these wires if not grounded to the engine, as the grounding straps will be alive with thousands of volts wanting to ground-out to anything (or body) nearby.

Unless you are prepared to accept poorly suppressed ignition wires that fail sooner than any other type of ignition wires and stretch your ignition system to the limit, and have an engine with no electronic management system and/or exhaust emission controls, it's best not to be influenced by the exaggerated claims, and some vested-interest journalists', resellers' and installers' perception an engine has more power after Nology wires are fitted. Often, after replacing deteriorated wires, any new ignition wires make an engine run better.

NastyC5

I just added Bosch Plat 4's. I don't know what good they did since I also added GM performance wires and B&B headers at the same time. I don't expect any gains with them, I just don't want to loose any power :chevy