Broken Motor??

[WyoSyclone]

Re: Broken Motor??

Everytime i would have trouble with mine the first place i would go was plug wires. with the ATR headers it used to have it was a tight fit and i would have one burned up all the time. dont spend $40 bucks on a set of "made to fit" wires. order a 25' roll of msd 8.5 mm wire and the summit brand crimp tool. Youll have at least 3 sets of wires that you can custom make and route as you please and you are your own quality control! In the 3 years i had the truck with the 4.3 in it, and after 40,000 miles, i replaced the cap and rotor ONCE!

Thanks Tom! Does MSD have bulk boots as well? I'm thinking about buying a 10 foot roll of thermal shield and taking that from the boot clear up to the valve covers on each side.

 

[Try Me]

Re: Broken Motor??

just pull the boots and ends off your wires you have now, crimp them on the new wire and go. I took the roll and tool with me on the power tour, other long trips, and to the track so i was never left with 5 cylinders!

 

[SY2932]

Re: Broken Motor??

Glad to hear that it turned out to be an "easy" fix ! I was going to post putting my $ on a bad ignition component but, I saw that you already discovered the problem

. My truck usually goes two years between ignition tune ups. The infamous "tach flutter" always alerting me when it's due to be done.

. dont spend $40 bucks on a set of "made to fit" wires. order a 25' roll of msd 8.5 mm wire and the summit brand crimp tool. Youll have at least 3 sets of wires that you can custom make and route as you please and you are your own quality control!

Yup, I bought a Taylor wire crimper last year and plan to make my own wires from here out. It didn't come with any instructions so I had to figure out how it worked

. Getting the wires through the boots can be "fun". I use dielectric grease to make things easier and don't strip the wires or crimp on the terminals until AFTER getting the wire through the boot.

 

[Foot Performance]

Re: Broken Motor??

You are just too damn luckey but way to go on an easy fix :tup: :tup:

 

[WyoSyclone]

Re: Broken Motor??

Hey Brandon,
Yup, I think the SyTy Gods have smiled upon me

...unless I get everything replaced and still have a miss! ...shhhh

 

[cloneman315]

Re: Broken Motor??

i have had magnacore on my truck for 5 years with headers and not one problem with the msd,the work real well also.

 

[WyoSyclone]

Re: Broken Motor??

i have had magnacore on my truck for 5 years with headers and not one problem with the msd,the work real well also.

Thanks Brian...I just pulled out my pics of your engine compartment, from the trip to Richard's place last month... dang, I wish mine looked that good! :tup:

 

[Flyin Ryan]

Re: Broken Motor??

i have had magnacore on my truck for 5 years with headers and not one problem with the msd,the work real well also.

Yea had magnacore wires on my gn the whole four or five years I owned it and never had a problem with them... on the sy i've gone through three sets of taylors (two sets had one bad plug wire in them) and am now just at the end of a set of atr black beauties but anyways glad to hear your fix was an inexpensive one Rob

 

[WyoSyclone]

Re: Broken Motor??

Yea had magnacore wires on my gn the whole four or five years I owned it and never had a problem with them... on the sy i've gone through three sets of taylors (two sets had one bad plug wire in them) and am now just at the end of a set of atr black beauties but anyways glad to hear your fix was an inexpensive one Rob

Thanks Ryan...
Looks like I'll be trying a set of Magnacores!

 

[turbodig]

Re: Broken Motor??

As far as wires, I've been through darn near every brand.

The expensive ones fail as often as the cheap ones. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. I suspect quality control has much to do with it.

I run cheapie wires on mine, and I put them on other people's trucks when they come in.
I wouldn't use them on somebody else's stuff if I didn't trust them, or if there was something better.

People really seem to resist this idea, believing that an $80 set of wires just *has* to be better. It simply isn't the case.

The Autolite pros work well, and these seem to work ok in testing so far...

(RockAuto)
POWERMAX Part # 700908 {7mm Premium Plug Wire}

I like the Powermax, as it's Belden wire and OEM grade boots. You can also buy 2 sets for the price of an expensive set. (and in some cases, 3 sets) I don't like the color- I guess you could paint them.

I have trucks with Autolites that have many years on a set of wires.

I do also like the idea of getting a spool of good wire, and terminals. This allows you to control the crimp quality. And, when (not if) you pull the terminal off the #6, you can just
make a new one quick.

I've also started adding the themotec sleeves around the boots, even on stock trucks. It's the heat that kills the wires, everything you can do to keep it away will make wires last longer. And, the sleeves are re-usable so you only need to buy the set once.

My .02.

 

[turbodig]

Re: Broken Motor??

OK Guys.....drum roll please


FYI - These are a set of the old Kenne Bell Red Hot 8mm wires.... nice quality control!

They should have flipped the conductor the other way. This is a lot more common than you'd think.

 

[SY2932]

Re: Broken Motor??

They should have flipped the conductor the other way. This is a lot more common than you'd think.

Yup see this all the time with electrical crimp connectors too, crimp on the "wrong" side of the connector.

 

[TYTILIDIE]

Re: Broken Motor??

I agree that cheap wires are just as good. I had a set of MSD wires that only lasted me 3 months. I did however, have them on my old Vette, built the motor in 00 and put the MSD wires on. I saw the car 2 years ago and asked to see how the car was. Same wires still going strong it it. But, on the TY, wires are wires.

 

[WyoSyclone]

Re: Broken Motor??

As far as wires, I've been through darn near every brand.

The expensive ones fail as often as the cheap ones. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. I suspect quality control has much to do with it.

I run cheapie wires on mine, and I put them on other people's trucks when they come in.
I wouldn't use them on somebody else's stuff if I didn't trust them, or if there was something better.

People really seem to resist this idea, believing that an $80 set of wires just *has* to be better. It simply isn't the case.

The Autolite pros work well, and these seem to work ok in testing so far...

(RockAuto)
POWERMAX Part # 700908 {7mm Premium Plug Wire}

I like the Powermax, as it's Belden wire and OEM grade boots. You can also buy 2 sets for the price of an expensive set. (and in some cases, 3 sets) I don't like the color- I guess you could paint them.

I have trucks with Autolites that have many years on a set of wires.

I do also like the idea of getting a spool of good wire, and terminals. This allows you to control the crimp quality. And, when (not if) you pull the terminal off the #6, you can just
make a new one quick.

I've also started adding the themotec sleeves around the boots, even on stock trucks. It's the heat that kills the wires, everything you can do to keep it away will make wires last longer. And, the sleeves are re-usable so you only need to buy the set once.

My .02.

Yup, I'm going to run the thermotec sleeves on mine too.... I think heat kills things pretty much before anything else does. With regard to the wires I think as long as the conductor is adequately sized, the more important thing is the terminating clip... some of them are made out of cheap steel that loses its temper and let's go of the plug.... the tighter the lock on the plug, I think the better. I've always been curious about the MagnaCores so thought I'd give them a try... I'm going to take a resistance reading through each one before I put it on and compare against the KB's that obviously have had a long, hard life.

 

[Don W.]

Re: Broken Motor??

Back to the beginning, if the plug wire doesn't do it then check the lower intake gasket. Happened to me and don't know how many others.

 

[Try Me]

Re: Broken Motor??

those thermotec sleeves are awesome too i have come to find out!

I cant wait to finish my v8 swap when i have plug wires that are 8 inches long that dont burn on anything, no cap and rotor and distributor module to worry about, and plug changes that will take 15 minutes from the TOP of the engine

btw, here is a shot under the hood of mine when the v6 was in there, not to highjack your thread
http://www.syty.net/forums//showthread.php?t=42752

 

[WyoSyclone]

Re: Broken Motor??

Back to the beginning, if the plug wire doesn't do it then check the lower intake gasket. Happened to me and don't know how many others.

I've got all my fingers crossed that just the wires are the end of the problem, Don... I'll have the final answer on that tonight or tomorrow morn....

 

[Don W.]

Re: Broken Motor??

I've got all my fingers crossed that just the wires are the end of the problem, Don... I'll have the final answer on that tonight or tomorrow morn....

Do the vac test like you said. I did mine and could hear something but sprayed soapy water all over the place and couldn't find anything so figured it was something in my apparatus. Only later when I was checking the preload on the lifters and had things torn apart anyway that I decided to go that final step and remove the lower intake and found the leak. Not that big a job actually. Also with mine #2 plug looked just a bit different.

See:

http://www.syty.net/forums/showthread.php?t=50844&highlight=intake

Good luck.

 

[WyoSyclone]

Re: Broken Motor??

Well, good news guys
One bad spark plug wire is what caused all of this... got the new MagnaCores and cap and rotor on, did my vacuum/pressure test of the intake tract (no leaks except for a very small one past the throttle body shaft), and it runs like a dream.

That old KB wire with the problem must have been causing slight problems all along cuz it seems to run a lot better now... when that wire did totally fail it REALLY started running bad... I would have swore it was something much worse.

Case closed :tup:

 

[Don W.]

Re: Broken Motor??

Good news, thanx for reporting back. Needs to happen more often.