Since I’ve been hearing horror stories about how crappy these wires make cars run, I thought I would check the resistance on the ones I put on the brown car. It doesn’t run as smoothly as I would like, and it feels like one cylinder is firing not 100%. It’s not a dead miss, but would like to hope it can run better. Here are the results of my resistance check. The numbers are in the 10k range, so 10.5 is 10,500 ohms. Had anyone whose had problems with these ever done a check on their wires?
I'm not running any fancy stuff... But I am leaning toward chucking these in the trash after MCACN to see if it makes a difference. I'm just curious to see if anyone who has actually had issues with these wires has run an ohm test on them. Would love to see some results. I haven't had any issues with them myself with the last half dozen cars.
A rule of thumb is 5000ohms per foot of wire. I've seen the short coil wires at 10,000 ohms PLUS!!! Ask Ken Lisk about what these CRAPPY wires ended up costing him. It's mind boggling. Pull the car into the show parking spot. Remove the GOOD wires & install these CRAPPY wires before moving again. I usually make up my own wires. Remove the lettering with a rag & Brakleen. Wish I had a way of making some kind of wire printer. Tom T.
I found the tests of my LL wires from a couple years ago. It appears the lengths changed a bit but here they are: 1. 23" 9.05 ohm 3. 20" 8.60 ohm 5. 32" 12.50 ohm 7. 29" 11.10 ohm 2. 30" 11.90 ohm 4. 31" 11.94 ohm 6. 42" 15.64 ohm 8. 40" 15.35 ohm
I finally removed my Packard wires and installed a set of Accel #5043K 8mm that I bought from https://www.summitracing.com/parts/ACC-5043K. I wasn't having any problems but seen issues and poor performance on V8 site so I thought I'd get another set and try them out. Opted for the premade versions as opposed to the cut and crimp this go around. Resistance was a factor of 10 less with the new wires. I believe I just lit a fire under this 455's butt. Pulls harder in second gear and third when I mash on the gas. I'll save the Packard wires and go for Concourse one more time at the Nationals. Packard resistance to Accel resistance 1 = 11K ohms & 1.1K ohms 3 = 11K ohms & 1.4K ohms 5 = 12K ohms & 3.2K ohms 7 = 18.3K ohms & forgot to measure 2 = 13.4K ohms & 1.4K ohms 4 = 16K ohms & 2.4K ohms 6 = 18.3K ohms & 3.2K ohms 8 = 21.5K ohms & 3.4K ohms
1&3 being the shortest wires and having 11k ohms resistance, that's alot. On average, I think 5k ohms per foot is the rule of thumb
I need to test my set and see. My set wouldn't take the power. Car fell on its face under any sort of moderate acceleration
I don't know what standard is but the accel's said 500 ohms per foot so that is on par for plugs 1 & 3. Plus they are 8mm instead of the 7mm. That's how mine felt when I would get on it in second. Seemed like it had more to give. It does sound smoother when accelerating. This is still all new to me with trying to tune a carb, fuel, vacuum and timing. Never done it before. But you guys are certainly teaching me on here. Guess next step is probably to remeasure timing and see if it's still what it was before. I would assume so, but you never know. Think it was about 10 at idle and 32 wide open without vacuum advance. Vacuum advanced added another 10 onto that.
Nice feeling, isn't it? Well, not shelling out $80 for wires that hinder performance but when the engine runs to its desired potential? I actually just dug out the set of 8mm FireCore50 wires I had made a couple years ago and have a bunch of OEM 4-wire looms that I'll drill out so the they'll fit and look somewhat stock-ish. It really sucks these LL wires are crap, especially at that price.
Funny enough I have been having some trouble with the 48 Ford. It'll break up like crazy under load in top gear. When I bought it I threw a full tune up at it. I can't find the manufacturer of the plug wires, but they are listed as concourse correct. I bet they are junk packards..
