OD of plug wire

[Tyler Zane]

I'm at work and a buddy has a pile of bulk plug wire he wants to sell. Can someone measure the outside diameter of a coil wire for me, this stuff is 8mm.

 

[Big Kahuna]

8mm should be just fine. ran some NAPA 8mm for a while.

 

[Tyler Zane]

Well he said they where 8mm but they are 8.5

 

[Tyler Zane]

What kinda resistance are we looking for? I figure as low as possible but would 500 ohms per foot be acceptable?

 

[Big Kahuna]

speaking greek to me now!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Tyler Zane]

German, not Greek!

 

[Big Kahuna]

ROFLMAO.......... Smart Ass!

 

[Tyler Zane]

Maybe someone will chime in on it. I'm curious and want to do a few coils I have laying around

 

[Big Kahuna]

I may still have some at home, try to remember to look this afternoon.

 

[Tyler Zane]

I did me a little research and found that I probably need to use spiral core, it has good rf properties and low resistance. Solid copper gives off a ton of rf and fiber/graphite core has high resistance.

Whatcha think @OCD Solutions

 

[Big Kahuna]

I thought I had a coil go bad in 2006 at the Lanier Ride. Friend had a new OEM 760 coil. still rocking it to this day......... they dont break down like the 701 plug wires do!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[OCD Solutions]

8mm works but you have to bore out the stock hole to accept it since stock is only 7mm. Not a problem since you have to build a boring tool anyways so just build it to work with 8mm wires.

FYI, I still use the old school solid core type with tinned copper wires. Some say it causes interference, my experience has been otherwise.

Maybe some setups are more sensitive than others and require the extra shielding of spiral core wires but you will also find a whole bunch of these "finicky" systems out there running perfectly fine with solid core wires.

Some wires are just built better than others so I would do the research and see what the general consensus is on the wire in question.

If it's a decent deal, just get it, try it out and report back to us.

 

[Tyler Zane]

8mm works but you have to bore out the stock hole to accept it since stock is only 7mm. Not a problem since you have to build a boring tool anyways so just build it to work with 8mm wires.

FYI, I still use the old school solid core type with tinned copper wires. Some say it causes interference, my experience has been otherwise.

Maybe some setups are more sensitive than others and require the extra shielding of spiral core wires but you will also find a whole bunch of these "finicky" systems out there running perfectly fine with solid core wires.

Some wires are just built better than others so I would do the research and see what the general consensus is on the wire in question.

If it's a decent deal, just get it, try it out and report back to us.

Thanks for the reply.

I'm very inquisitive still.

What exactly are the oem wires, I'm guessing spiral core because when I've cut them back I see several wires in a spiral..

Are "solid core" literally one solid copper strand?

 

[Tyler Zane]

Just got home, to the garage I go. Time for some investigating and tool fabrication.

 

[OCD Solutions]

It depends on the year or the style of machine. I see them in big piles, not the machines they came in so I can't actually say what comes in what. My assumption is that anything that comes with a digital ignition like the 760's and bigger comes with the spiral wound core. 650/701 come with the old school 7 strand stainless core.

The solid core wires are usually a 7 strand stainless or tinned copper wire. The more strands, the more flexible the wire is. Stainless sounds like the answer but it tends to be brittle and ends up just breaking internally.

FYI, Oem with the spiral core wire has a neat little adapter that pushes into the bottom of the ignition wire before it gets pushed into the coil and mates to the spike in the coil pocket. I have managed to get a couple of them out intact but most are destroyed during removal of the old wires. I have done some searches and never found a source for them new.

I have tried just shoving the spiral type wires into the pin without an adapter and it seems to work well enough, I just question why OEM does it. They don't tend to do things without good reason. So then by not doing it, are we running the risk of an early failure? Static? Increased interference?

 

[Tyler Zane]

I was just looking up cut away pictures of spiral vs solid and I gathered exactly what you said.

I'm gonna go with the solid strand as you do. That stuff my buddy has is 8.5 mm so I'm gonna pass but I'm on summit now looking at some Taylor bulk wire. It's in the median on the coat scale and has good ratings overall. 30 ft is 44 doll hairs and will get me plenty of coils fixed up.

Thanks for y'all help. Learned something new today!

 

[augustaf]

This is how I have been connecting to the pin.

 

[Tyler Zane]

This is how I have been connecting to the pin.View attachment 342137

So do you still epoxy the insulation into the coil?

 

[JetManiac]

The spiral core wires are used on oem coils on most/all couches with 701 and up, probably to help prevent interference problems with the gauges.

 

[augustaf]

So do you still epoxy the insulation into the coil?

Yes, I do. Wouldn't want to give the wire an excuse to slip out of the coil tower.