Spark plug wires

Posted by Ross On 2012/12/4 7:24:45

I had learned this before and the lesson is reinforced:
Have spent the summer running around in my new Thousanddollarwonder, a nasty 54 Clipper optioned with only a heater and an oil filter. The engine ran fairly well but was prone to buck when pulling a slow corner, would intermittently skip at idle, and the ignition would start to break down if I wound it out in second. Distributor was in good order, and starting was fine.

Finally got around to dealing with the kluge of mismatched and incorrectly routed plug wires--some of which were resistor type. Picked up a universal set of copper cored wires for $25 at Advance. These are now neatly routed through the block under the coil and through their little rubber separators. They are bright yellow and really add a festive touch to the 100% undetailed 91,000 mile engine compartment.

The difference in performance and smoothness is frankly amazing. Idle is dead smooth, bucking under load is gone, and the only rev limit is common sense. I drove the car 180 miles last Sunday cutting and thrusting with all the other clowns on the Baltinmore and Washington beltways null problemo at up to 75. Gas mileage seems way better and I'll have a number when I refill later this week.

Moral is, the change of wires solved a small panorama of problems that could easily have been chalked up to carb, coil or plugs. 6v cars really don't seem to like resistor wires.