Let me start off by saying that I greatly respect and appreciate your in depth explanation not only on my thread, but every thread that you post on. Many people just say, "Use this one." with no explanation. I can't tell you how much that annoys me because it's the same thing one person said that's being regurgitated by tons of people. Yet they can't explain why.

For some reason, the magnecor PDF won't upload for me. I guess I'll just call them on Monday. How long do these wires last? I'm just trying to do the math in order to push myself to buy them. Thanks again CM

Respectfully,
J415

 

Oh, great, I'm so glad that your interested in the WHY part because, that's the part that is really where the information to present a case can be useful.

The wires will outlast all modern / mass produced wires and, to be truthful, I can NOT remember what the lifespan is before degredation. He did inform me of this time period but again, I can't honestly say because I simply can not recall that conversation.

HISTORY:

Wires used to be designed for CARB setups where, there was no electronics in the engine bay. When designers started designing in control modules and, ECUs and sensor based feedback systems, a problem arose during testing and that was, the ignition wires were fouling up the entire system.

How does this occur? Well, when electricity travels down a wire, it produces what is called the Corona affect. Under certain conditions, the localized electric field near an energized conductor can be sufficiently concentrated to produce a tiny electric discharge that can ionize air close to the conductors.

This produces EMI (electro magnetic interference) which, it's affect upon the EFI system, interferes with the transmission lines of sensor voltages, injector driver CKTs to operation of the PCM itself. Yeah, ok, but, HOW does this occur / happen? Read on.

HOW: Going one level deeper here, electrical currents can be induced by electric and magnetic fields in conductive / metallic objects in close proximity to the high voltage wires. As a result, an induced current on a neighboring sensor wire will make it's way into the PCM thus throwing what was once a 5-volt signal at the input to much greater magnitude thus throwing the whole CKT out of whack. This is the extent of HOW it affects the PCM. It's a false / erratic reading which, may lead one to believe that the O2 sensor or CPS is faulty when, the real root cause is induced current being induced by a nearby ignition wire.

It's also been known in some cases to ARC over to a ground return path that ties into the PCM and blow a CKT at the PCM.

So, over the years, due to the ease of manufacture, millions of these newer designed low-resistance BS-based wires are being produced and put into vehicles. A lot of issues arose over the years and, still, most mechanics that I know install the higher resistance OEM wires (carbon conductor) over these low resistance aftermarket wires.

WHY: They were preferred as they didn't interfere as much as the newer style wire designs that someone designed as a super cheap product to replace carbon conductors. Going even further back, stainless steel and copper solid-core wire! I don't know if you recall those but, those were quite amazing and lasted forever! Of course, they can not be installed on an EFI vehicle.

Moving into the future:

Due to the number of complaints of cross-fire induction and short to chassis incidents and erratic PCM and ECU performance, things started to heat up.

This is why we are starting to see 8 -11 MM size ignition wires. They are compensating and covering up for thier crap-a-s-s design by attempting to beef up the dielectric properties by going thicker. The problem is, they use cheap materials to do so.

Current Design Flaws

Let's just talk abou the boot design for a moment.

If the boot material is of of wrong materials and design, what it does is FUSE to the plug due to it fusing at the molecular level. Coupled with those damn boots that are too long thus covering the whole plug almost, it makes it almost impossible to remove. It's literally fused at the molecular level.

It also does not allow the plug to breath thus causing the plug to not be able to convection cool like it should normally. The other issue with those boots is air becomes trapped during installation. This air heats and cools thus condensing causing water molecules to form. When it heats as the engine warms up to temp, it now outgasses thus creating pressure and has absolutely no where to go. NOTE: This is why most plugs are ribbed by the way. It's to allow an breather to allieviate this problem.

If the pressure builds high enough, it most certainly can cause the boot to eject off the plug thus resulting in intermittent misfire conditions. Yeah, that's just one of the failure modes of when using the wrong boot material. I'm not even going to discuss the other areas of cable costruction as it could simply end up as a dissertation here.

IDEAL WIRES:

What you want in a wire is a superb dielectric properties. This is the shield that prevents leakage. Leakage is when the voltage escapes and, the higher the voltage, the greater the potential. Potential is an electrical engineering term that describes just that: potential for leaking, arcing etc. This is to ensure that your EFI system works as intended.

You also want an excellent conductor that's not going to break down quickly such as stainless steel (SS). Costs more but, in the end, it's worth it as, 130.00 dollars one time vs. TWICE on MSD Super 8.5s which exceeded that one-time 130.00 cost for Magnecors.

I'm an engineer. I like to test things and see what does what on my own vehicle. Yes, it cost me a lot of money in testing all this out but, for me, it's worth every penny to figure out what works 100% along with knowing with absolute certainty that the wires I'm running are the best and will not crap out under load, uphill, at high elevation when towing out in the high desert etc. If those previous brands of wires had worked as intended, I would have NEVER had to run tests to determine what was causing the failures and, I would have never had to source nor recommend Magnecor wires in the first place.

This whole thing stemmed from a simple problem: bad / faulty ignition wires on my truck. Simple as that really.

Sincerely,

CM

 

How do I tell what brand stock coil I have? Haynes manuel states that there are 2 types, Diamond and Toyodenso and they both have somewhat different specs as far as testing goes. Any info would be great!

 

The main difference between the two is negligable and, I wouldn't be concerned with which one you have vs. the OHM readings.

The Toyodenso's secondary resistance specs out at 13.3K OHM vs. the Diamond at 15K. Other than that, the OHM spec for the primary is about the same (Toyo has a minute increase of range on the primary) which, is minute and almost unmeasureable on a cheapo DVM / DMM. Both have a range and, as long as the measurement falls WITHIN that range, it's considered good.

There's a P/N stamped in the side. You may be able to look that up and find who the OEM MFR was in case your really looking for that answer.

But, again, all you really need is to measure the primary and secondary and, if it's good, it's going to fall within that specified RANGE so, as long as it's within the lower and upper limits - your coil is considered to be good.

CM

 

Thanks for walking me threw this CM. I took it to a shop to have it scanned for codes and it came back with the random misfire code. So I changed the wires and plugs and it sounds ALOT better. I'll be taking it out for a test drive Sat, so 'till then, I'll be keeping my fingers crossed. I'll let you guys know what's what so that it helps the next DF member that comes along.

 

magnacore wire have the highest ohm's per foot wire ive ever tested.high ohm's per foot is a weaker spark at the plug period.dont care what magnacore says its ohm's law.they suppress well because of the high resistence but not good for spark energy.fyi.the ribs on a spark plug helps with flash over not moisture.ribs lengthen the insulator so the spark doesnt leak passed the terminal down the insulator to the metal shell.

 

First, let's get the facts.

FACT: Magnecor informs their customers that the wire they sell is higher OHM resistance and, it should be higher OHMs because it's made up of SS-core wire vs thinner, cheaped down, low grade junk conductor wire that's spiral wrapped and chemically coated. So, that whole bit of not caring what they (Mag) says, is false and should be thrown out.

Regarding OHM's law, yes, being an aerospace electronics engineer working with electronics for the past 20 years, I am familiar with OHM's law. I know what angle you're approaching this but, you're missing some really important information in regards to the physics of how electrons flow through a conductor. What you're inferring is that, if the wire is higher in resistance, a lower voltage on the other side is seen which, in turn, leads to a weaker spark and, in an unhealthy wire (degraded conductor), this is true. But, there's two perspectives to that and they are:

TWO PERSPECTIVES A healthy wire and a degraded wire.

FACT NO 2: OHM resistance readings are not representative to real world physics of how electricity travels on a healthy conductor. Let's use an example so you can see how this works.

Again, you've got to have an understanding of HOW electrons flow at the conductor level. We are not talking about low-DC voltage type of CKTs here but hi voltage and, in this application, the voltage does NOT FLOW THROUGH the conductor but rather ON TOP / down the outside, on the very surface of the conductive material. This is the skin affect.

So, even if the wire were to measure 3K OHMs, the electons are not going to pass through 3K OHMs of resistance as a OHM meter would.

When you measure OHMs what you're doing is using low voltage to measure the TOTAL resistance of the conductor. This being the total distance and total mass of the conductor for a given wire length.

In a hi-voltage application such as this, that is not applicable for, again, the electrons never flow through but ride along the top of the conductor which means, the actual resistance is FAR LESS than of which is measured.

It simply cannot be applied nor held up in argument that higher ohm wires are worse because they show higher resistance. Again, this is for NEW wires and NOT degraded metalization and molecular breakdown of the conductor itself.

That's a bad conductor which in turn leads to a voltage loss. That's TOTALLY different and is a failure of the conductor thus leading to a weak spark which is a failure and is not part of a normal, functional wire.


Moving on:

There's a reason why engineering chose NOT to go with low resistance wiring. If they were concerned with low resistance, they'd still be using wire such as SOLID CORE conductor wiring such as Cu and SS. That's as close to zero OHM as you can get but, you can't run those on an EFI vehicle and, for good reason.

As for the ribbing at the plug, it's to serve multi-purposes and, again, one was for cooling and to prevent boot fusing the plug. It was also to relieve pressure and allow moisture to escape as well as avoiding installation issues when trying to install to a smooth-wall plug. The air becomes entrapped / pressurized under the boot thus popping the boot off the smooth-walled plug.

Do you know how or why the boot fuses to the plug? There's a chemical bonding action due to the materials that's used at the boot and at the plug insulator. When you mate them together and, you apply heat and pressure over a long duration, over time, the boot material fuses to the insulator material thus becoming one substrate and not TWO separate substrates.

So, there's more than just to prevent a arc to ground condition at the plug and, to futher add to that condition (FLASH OVER), it usually occurs only in the presence of moisture / water and CHEAP ignition and a high-resistance plug. Get good wires and plugs that won't happen.

Root cause for failure in that case: Faulty or CHEAP ignition wires and bad plugs.

CM

 

Magnecor is the only company that can achieve a better product by ignoring/dismissing ohm’s law.lets get the factual and not theory of spark energy.

The FACT that magnecor states the skin effect but only mentions half the equation is just another manufactures bs advertising.lets talk fact of this effect.Ac current flows through the conductor(plug wires) yes the density of this current is greater at its surface then the core but they fail to mention is the effective resistance of the conductor will increase.spark current is restricted to the surface and not flowing through the full cross section of the conductor thus lol increasing resistance furthermore,choosing the wrong cross section of the conductor will lead to higher current losses and bad overall efficiency.current will flow out of phase increasing resistance called the joule effect.

This is a mod point as the skin effect only applies to AC current therefore doesn’t apply to the secondary circuit of a ignition system.before a coil shoots its load theres no voltage at all.the coil lets loose and the plug fires .the voltage flowing through the conductor(plug wire) is relatively constant.this AC like voltage is the direct transfer between the primary/secondary windings of the coil.high resistance in this secondary circuit are in direct relations to the loss of current at the gap of the plug.YES ohm’s law does apply to the secondary circuit of an ignition system.

FLASH OVER and BOOT CONSTRUCTION.flash over occurs when the plug gap requires more voltage to fire then the voltage required from the terminal to shell.moisture does not need to be present.AGAIN,the ribs on the insulator effectively lengthens the distance the current would need to flow to bridge the gap(current flows to the shortest,less resistant path)NOT this cooling or preventing boot fusion or relieve pressure to allow moisture to escape.FACT typical boot construction allows air,moisture and contaminants to enter between the top of the boot and wire but as temps increase the air and moisture are forced out.as a result this path wastes spark energy AND DOES NOT CAUSE FLASH OVER.heat is the #1 factor when the boots break down and fuse to the plug not air or moisture.in fact some sets of wires have a ceramic boot to prevent this heat fusion.furthermore they vulcanize the boot to wire interface to effectively minimize energy loss due to air,moisture and contaminants entering from the wire to boot interface.

In conclusion we can determine with FACT that magnecor wires offer the same bs advertising as the rest.GOOD QUIALITY SET LIKE TAYLOR OR JACOBS will insure all spark energy possible to the plug gap with the least amount of resistance on the secondary circuit.

 

No, only CHEAP, low quality wires allow foreign object debris to enter the boot to wire interface. Must be some really bad wires because, I've yet to see ANY debris of moisture or other foreign objects under the boot during or after real-world use when using good wires.

Now, what comes to ming are the OLD and CHEAP quality ones from the 60s and 70s (Bosch) that had loose, sloppy boots that one could easily slide up and off without any lubrication and needed to be zip tied around the dizzy contacts -sure, it is a problem. Go off-roading, get some water in that boot and down the plug and you've got potential. Potentail for flash-over. This is what I was referring to regaring the presence of moisture as seen below.

The boot to cable interface on every wire I've run possessed a very good seal at the boot to cable interface. On MSDs, Mags, Moroso etc, this fit requires a screwdriver and lubrication to remove the boots. The seal is so tight that, it may hold pressure before leaking.

BOOT FUSING: I never mentioned water and moisture as being needed for this to occur. What I said about moisture was in regards to flash-over and, for fusing, the following is what I had written.

If you go to Magnecor and talk to their engineers directly, all the information is disclosed. In fact, the specs for their wires are posted on their site along with the reason for ribbing at the plug which can be read here in detail. http://www.magnecor.com/magnecor1/te...ins/techsf.htm
http://www.magnecor.com/magnecor1/main.htm


If anyone is hiding anything, it's the manufactuers of cheap wires. The fact that the other companies fail to disclose information about the high resistance conductive latex or silicone coating that they use to REDUCE SPARK current -by means of INCREASING RESISTANCE, in attempt to reduce EMI is also another, non disclosed fact.

Then, what they also don't tell you is how this coating degrades and breaks down over time thus eventually leading to EMI radiation thus tripping up the PCM.

Actually, the skin effect pertains to AC and that's where it stops. As for not applying at the secondary, DC is at both input and output. This type of ignition coil it not a typical step up transformer in which, the primary and secondary are separated. These share windings, thus the reason why one can measure from primary to secondary and obtain a reading.

It's also pulsed DC @ ~ 13.6 - 14 VDC at the input / primary of the coil.

In other types of step up / down coils, it runs off the ALT thus inputting AC and, it will put out current simultaneously to applied input current. But, in an auto ignition coil designed to be used with a battery / DC system, it funtions differently. It is not 100% magnetically coupled.

The coil is pulsed via the PCM by means of switching the ground ON / OFF respective to the timing sequence thus, it's not constant- it is pulsed. When the coil is connected to the DC source, it acts as an inductor charged with current. Magnetic field is built up due to reverse voltage induced by the increasing magnetic field. When the PCM opens the ground, the change in current at the primary produces a large voltage spike at the primary which in turn leads to a larger voltage at the windings.


CM

 

Just an update for the next person to have these symptoms and don't know where to start. So it's been 2 weeks later and the full tune up did it well. At first I changed everything EXCEPT the plugs because 2 years prior, I bought some E3's and there guaranteed for 5 years. Well, it turns out that as soon as I switched out my E3's to some NGK V-powers, it's back to normal. It was getting to the point were I would get a slight back fire we, I turn the truck off with the E3's installed. Hope this helps out fellas.