Plug wires flashing?

[NateS]

Okay so I had my hood popped tonight. It was pretty dark outside and I noticed little flashes coming from my plug wires. Looked like the flashes were coming from inside the plug wire jackets. The arc flashes were coming from inside the wires and each wire was flashing at different times at different spots but, not very fast. Every few seconds there would be a faint flash. My questions is, is this normal? I honestly have never looked at my plug wires in the dark and saw this before. My wires have been on for awhile now so I don't know if they may be going bad or if this is normal occuring event.

[SilvrEclipse]

Thats not normal, might want to check into that some more

[gthompson97]

They're arcing because they're worn out. If you looked closely at them, I bet you can find some tiny cracks. Get new ones.

[NateS]

Thanks I figured it wasn't normal but, I didn't want to go spend $80 bucks for no reason.

[gthompson97]

How old are they? For the power that you're running (by your mods), you might want to look into Buschur's COP (coil-on-plug). They're pretty spendy, but basically what it does is each sparkplug gets it's own "mini-coil" that sits right above it. I know a guy that runs them up here, and he said he could definitely tell a difference when he put them on, but he kept having troubles with arcing plug wires so he got the COP instead.

[MazdaX]

Originally Posted by gthompson97

They're arcing because they're worn out. If you looked closely at them, I bet you can find some tiny cracks. Get new ones.

or go with silicones..not as good as the COP's but eh..not as pricey either. You can get 10 mm's off ebay for around 40.00 shipped :/

[NateS]

I'm ussually kinda cautious about those ebay deals but, I'll scope it out.

[gthompson97]

If you do go wired again, definitely get oversized ones to keep this from happening again anytime soon.

[4g63gst20]

i had the same problem with mine, but mine is only one wire, like if i pull it a litle then you will see/hear sparks. and my sparkplug wires were brand new. I will get oversized wires next time. l

[gthompson97]

Originally Posted by longemoco

i had the same problem with mine, but mine is only one wire, like if i pull it a litle then you will see/hear sparks. and my sparkplug wires were brand new. I will get oversized wires next time. l

Maybe you just got a bad set. A new set shouldn't do that right out of the box, you have to wear them out at least a little bit before they start to spark.

[SilvrEclipse]

Originally Posted by longemoco

i had the same problem with mine, but mine is only one wire, like if i pull it a litle then you will see/hear sparks. and my sparkplug wires were brand new. I will get oversized wires next time.

Were these wires from ebay??

[4g63gst20]

Originally Posted by SilvrEclipse

Were these wires from ebay??

no man, i bought them at checker auto, but now that i remember, they said they had limited lifetime warranty.

[Blackcrow64]

Yeah those are definitely no good. I had the same problem with the Firebird going through a lot of plug wires until I upgraded to heavier ones... So with my Talon I just went and bought heavier ones off the bat rather than screwing around with stock wires...

Although now I am wishing I had gotten a COP setup for my motor... Who knows, maybe that'll be next on the list of things to do once its running.

[NateS]

Thes plug wires I am talking about are bigger ones. They are Magnacore 8.5 mms. Like I said though the flashing seems to be coming from inside the jacket. It is not arcing out of the jacket jus inside.

[gthompson97]

So it's not arcing outside through the jacket? I'm confused now. So you could see little sparks from INSIDE the wires?

Do you or someone you know have a multimeter? Check resistance on the wires, it should be less than 22,000 ohms.