Usually, I'm working on a car that I really care about, so I go OEM or known upgrades. This time, I was tuning up a 2005 Chrysler T&C and they had these wires on the shelf @ Advance, so I figured what the heck, it's just a Chrysler minivan.
Since I'm a nerd who already had my meter out (if ya know what I'm sayin') and the factory service manual was close, I decided to see how bad the unknown age & mileage plug wires were. I was pretty shocked at the results. Here's wire #6 OEM:
As you can see, the spec calls for a max of 16.4 K Ohm, and this one measured under 4. All of the wires that I checked were about 1/4 of the allowed resistance.
Then I checked the brand-new Driveworks one:
That's right.. They're over the allowed resistance by 50% out of the box!
How do you even make a wire that has much resistance without trying!?
I just became aware that I no longer have any cars with plug wires. When I did, I went OEM -- usually on Hondas and Toyotas. Big +1 for testing them first.
Yeah, COPs are good like that :)
I've always used NGK stuff on my Mazdas, but I figured, eh, what's the harm, right?
And that's why I don't buy the cheapest FLAPS stuff for ignition repairs. Now, I'm not saying the more expensive stuff is any better.....
You say max of 16.4 and you got 4, which is clearly less than the max. Was there a minimum listed?
That resistance is for radio noise suppression. To a 20kv coil capable of firing an ardent across an open air gap of essentially infinite resistance it's not really going to matter. If you were pushing huge performance and jamming enough fuel in the cylinders to be close to hydrolocking or if you have a weak coil it might reduce performance a bit, but in a minivan you won't be able to tell the difference between the sets unless one set is obviously failing and arcing to ground.
oldopelguy said:
You say max of 16.4 and you got 4, which is clearly less than the max. Was there a minimum listed?
That resistance is for radio noise suppression. To a 20kv coil capable of firing an ardent across an open air gap of essentially infinite resistance it's not really going to matter. If you were pushing huge performance and jamming enough fuel in the cylinders to be close to hydrolocking or if you have a weak coil it might reduce performance a bit, but in a minivan you won't be able to tell the difference between the sets unless one set is obviously failing and arcing to ground.
There wasn't a minimum listed in the manual, and I got 4 on the older, unknown-age-and-mileage OEM wires. I understand why the resistance is there in general, but all I have to go on is the manual, and I'm ASSuming that some EE enginerd put the max there for a reason.. Would you want to put on a wheel bearings that already have 1.5x the allowed play?
