Replaced my plug wires last night

[SuperJETT]

At the Jersey Rager last year, I had some saltwater issues with my coil wires, and finally got around to replacing them last night.

It only took around an hour with a lot of dilly-dallying, with practice and the right tools it would probably only take 10 minutes I imagine.

I'll ride this afternoon to test, but I'm pretty sure it's good.

The wires came from Autozone and are very good quality IMO. When you consider that most people have the crappy stock rubber with wires inside, anything is going to be better. I'm sure JSS's wire is better than what I got, but buy how much?

Total cost, $14. $5 for one wire, $6 for the longer one, and $3 for the epoxy.

http://www.x-h2o.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=70

 

[Big Kahuna]

I picked up some Belden Hi Performance Wire from NAPA a few years ago, been running them for several years now........... Same stuff that JSS was using a few years back............. not sure what he doing now, but it the same stuff basically........... cant remember the strand count, but at least twice as many as stock........... also here is a hint, OEM Coil is what about 70-80.00......... you can get a Kawi 750 coil for about half of that and I believe it is the exact same part number.

 

[freestylegeek]

Well done Darin!

 

[Mouthfulloflake]

So...

how did you make the connection between that remaining strand and the new plug wire?

Ive made one attempt at this as well, but I drilled the old wire out of the coil.
there is a metallic base down in there, you have to be careful not to drill thru...

oops.

 

[Big Kahuna]

you remove all of the hold material, then just slide the new wire in until it comes in contact with the spike, then push it all the way down, they glue it in......... I ground out the sides so I could get them cleaned out, then just epoxy'd over the holes.

 

[Mouthfulloflake]

you remove all of the hold material, then just slide the new wire in until it comes in contact with the spike, then push it all the way down, they glue it in......... I ground out the sides so I could get them cleaned out, then just epoxy'd over the holes.

ahhhh, ok, I must have drilled out the spike, since I never saw it.

hmmmmm

 

[SuperJETT]

I cut the wire, and it was stiff enough to kind of 'screw' it into the new wire. I would really need to get a junk coil to destroy to see how it's made inside before I went any further. I didn't want to destroy my only coil 2 days before leaving for Lanier.

 

[ski4]

i did that once with autozone wire but it was a a resistor type wire and the core was ceramic i think.
the reisitance was too high, pulled it out and got some solid core wire ( from a marine store), cleaned out the coil like bk said.
one side came out very nice, the ohter i had to use an ice pick to get in and clean up the remains, then epoxied.

have not used it yet, it is sitting here as a back up till one of mine goes.
but when i tested the resistance it fell to within specs

the local yami shop told me it would run bad on the top end with too much resistance

 

[Mouthfulloflake]

I cut the wire, and it was stiff enough to kind of 'screw' it into the new wire. I would really need to get a junk coil to destroy to see how it's made inside before I went any further. I didn't want to destroy my only coil 2 days before leaving for Lanier.

the coil I used was a junk Kawi coil.

your method should work fine, even better though if you put some heat shrink down on the joint there for some extra mechanical connection I wouod think?

 

[SuperJETT]

As for the heat shrink, the wires are supported by the grommets about 1/2 inch from the coil, plus my epoxy did a good job of securing the wires.

I rode today, worked great, it's nice to have good boots again that actually CLICK when you put them on the plugs.

On the resistor wire, the whole point of resistor plugs/wires is to prevent RFI. We run resistor plugs already, and sparks are created by voltage, not current, so there isn't much of a performance hit really.

Overall, I'm super happy, $14 for a huge improvement and it was easy to do.

 

[crammit442]

As for the heat shrink, the wires are supported by the grommets about 1/2 inch from the coil, plus my epoxy did a good job of securing the wires.

I rode today, worked great, it's nice to have good boots again that actually CLICK when you put them on the plugs.

On the resistor wire, the whole point of resistor plugs/wires is to prevent RFI. We run resistor plugs already, and sparks are created by voltage, not current, so there isn't much of a performance hit really.

Overall, I'm super happy, $14 for a huge improvement and it was easy to do.

I agree 100%. Any stray RFI can easily disturb ECWI and TL brains. MSD wires work really well for TL and are bullet proof. Not good for replacement on a stock coil though.

Charles

 

[ski4]

charles, are msd wires resistor wires then?, what happens in a stock coil with these, i did not use them but found solid core.

 

[crammit442]

They are resistor wires. They wouldn't be suited well for replacement on a stock coil because of the way they're wound in the core. I think it would be difficult to make them work w/the little spike that's inside the coil when you cut out the old wire. I think a normal stranded wire would be easier to work with. Hope that makes sense.:wink: Here's a link to their plug wire page.

Charles

http://www.msdpowersports.com/2004_spark_plug_wires.html

 

[ski4]

it does
thanks