how do the shorty wires work? from my understanding it keeps the wires from having to run across the top of the motor, but that means your are now pluggin that end of the wire into a diff spark plug then normal, how can you to that without making the engine fire at the wrong time?

 

"Back in the day" when you had a distributor, rotor and points going to shorter and thicker wires was the "in thing" for squeezing more out of an engine. You had full control over the timing of the vehicle and could have your engine running optimally for whatever length the wires were.

But just like a throttle body spacer USED TO work for better HP and MPG gains but is actually detrimental because of the way TBs are set up now, shorter wires are also a thing of the past since the timing is controlled by computer now. The only exception to this rule would be if you were to have someone custom tune you for the difference in the wire lengths. This is ESPECIALLY the case for modern engines which utilize two spark plugs per cylinder where the timing of the secondary plug is critical for optimum burn.

I had this conversation with Marty when he was still at KRC Performance and he had some dyno data to back up his contention that you actually LOST performance when you messed with stock wire lengths.

Thicker is still better, but not so with shorter...

 

thanks hammer thats good info. but i still wanna know how the engine wont missfire, because your not only making them shorter but you are changing which spark plug the wire runs too.

 

The wires that cross over your engine are part of the waste spark system that went away in 2006. When the coil actually sitting on the plug fires, it also sends a pulse to an opposite side cylinder on its exhaust stroke. It's an emissions thing that only lasted 3 years. The shorty wires change that setup so that the cylinder the coil sits on ends up being fired by both plugs instead of just the one.

 

ohhhh, i get it now. so that would be alot more spark, what kind of power gains are yall seeing from this?

 

Well, according to any testing that has been done, you actually lose top end power with this. When I did it, the engine seemed to run smoother to me. It also cleans up the engine bay. Next step is 06+ coil conversion.

 

Short plug wires are being reported as a detrimental effect on cold-weather operation. I suspect the newer setup with both plugs on the same coil are still doing the same thing: fire one, then the other to complete the burn.

 

What good would that do? I don't think that would even work correctly on the same cylinder, hence the original setup sending it to an opposing cylinder on its partial exhaust stroke.

Edit: took some searching through several FSM's. Dual plug coil fires both plugs simultaneously.

 

I did the 06+ dual coil conversion and it isnt cheap to do at about $425 +/- but it does look more cool. I noticed no change or performance but it looks more clean. Next for me is a new and shaved (ext) intake.

 

I thought about the '06 conversion myself as I"ll be about due for wires in the next 10k miles. But it's hard for me to justify the cost when I really don't see a performance benefit there. I do agree it does give the engine compartment a cleaner look though...