Camaro350z28

i swear if i went from a bad set of msd to a bad set of taylor new im gonna freak lol. guess i shoulda ohmd these awhile ago. i might go with some fn autozone specials here in a minute

Kevin Blown 95 TA

Ohming the wires only tells you if the conductor is OK. 3000 Ohms/foot is still OK - that's what some OEM spiral wound wires are. And most resistor plugs are 5k Ohms anyhow. What isn't OK is when the insulator is weak, and the 15k volts or whatever it is firing at, is getting to ground through the jacket. And you can't test for that with your multi-meter. You'd need a hi-pot tester that went up to 20k volts or something. Or maybe you could see it on an oscilloscope with a 1000:1 probe. If you see arcing to ground, that's a few KV of your spark voltage leaking out. Might as well have a leak in your fuel line.

One of the hardest things to accept when troubleshooting is when your replacement parts might be faulty. Not saying that is the case, but you need to be aware that it is a possibility. Happened to me once with motorcycle coils. The wires fell out of the old ones, so I bought (expensive aftermarket) new ones. The bike still ran crappy as soon as it warmed up, and I messed with it for 3 weeks and then finally had a shop look at it. They replaced the coils and that was the problem. Bad new coils - go figure.

Camaro350z28

ya i hate blinders. i put those on cause new parts and i know better too. i was testing all wires. how come the msd coil wire tests at 60ohm and the taylor coil wire tests at like 1.2+??

Kevin Blown 95 TA

Wire resistance depends on the construction and materials used in making the spiral core and the conductive core coating (and the length of the wire), but most of that low resistance claim is just a sales gimmick anyway since they behave differently when they have high voltage going through them and not the couple volts the multi-meter puts out to measure a resistance. I read a report on resistor wires from Champion which said that the resistance of the wires (within the usual range) didn't make a measurable difference in the spark energy reaching the plug. It might have some effect on the time the current takes to flow for each spark event, but it all still gets there. The voltage needed to fire the plug (mixture, compression, gap, etc) is what dictates how much voltage there is, not the wires or coil. They just make sure it is available, and most systems are capable of producing more than is needed so that it will still work if the plugs wear and have wide gaps in a lean-running engine..If resistance was uber important, we would be in trouble unless we used equal length wires for each cylinder.

Camaro350z28

^^^ very true. like the explanation. Im just fishing here at this point but it sounds like my wires are probably fine then. my taylor coil wire is at 1200ohm so im going to swap it for my 60ohm msd wire. i doubt the arcing will stop on the coil wire anyway but i dont know what else to check. im almost praying my new taylors were bad

ny_z28man

Hey man, electricity will take the path of least resistance to the ground. for some reason its easier for the spark to arch across the isolator then to take its resistance path through the plug. After that check that coil output, sounds like that thing might be over producing. If that's the case it might burn up the cap and rotor on your opti too. your ignition module might be giving an incorrect dwell and full fielding the coil. that's all I can guess of along with all the other suggestions.

Kevin Blown 95 TA

The rise time on the coil is very fast or it wouldn't work at 6000 rpm. Once it saturates, it won't make more spark no matter how long you pass current through it, and at idle, it is fully saturating. And like I said before, the spark plug firing in the cylinder under pressure is going to determine the voltage needed from the system. If the spark requirement is 20 kv and the wire's insulation is only good to 17 kv and it is touching the engine, then some or all of the current will go to ground.

ny_z28man

OK so he should find a way to reduce the voltage damand by slightly reducing the plug gap or get wires that have more insolation to hold up to his current demand?

TobyZ28

If the grounds are good, your plugs are gapped even "remotely ok" and its arcing everywhere I would lean towards the Coil/Coil wire/Opti having an issue. The reason is if it were just 1 or 2 bad wires(and i mean seriously bad not just a nominally higher Ohm reading), it wouldn't arc on all of the wires... This is assuming like Kevin said above that the wires have the right insulation for the job in general!

You've narrowed down the coil and wires it seems which just leaves the Opti Perhaps it was damaged somehow when placed back on? Doesn't seem likely if it was working fine before, but you've sort of narrowed down all other options.

Camaro350z28

ive had it. can an opti actually cause this guys? $300 that im not sure if itll even be a fix bothers me.

perhaps everyones stumbling issues that were opti related really had the same symptoms as mine they just never looked at night? i dont know im spent on this

car has ZERO problems firing up. ZERO problems idling. sounds like it idles like a champ. but you hold the throttle and then you can tell its not fine. stumbling and missing. really figured this would give me hard start problems but it does not.

slick1hunting

have you tried logging car? I know the light show would take my focus but sounds like this started with the mods and tune so what if the tune is off and your spark is weak. I guess I am mostly saying perhaps if you eliminate fueling as a part of the issue you will feel better about the possible opti. Might just want to scan it for codes. You obviously have done everything spark side short of the opti it sounds


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Camaro350z28

no codes. i did log the car and sent it to pcmforless but told him to scrap it cause i found out it was arcing.

summers_Z28

Just reading up on this.. if its still a problem..
1) check the Compression of all your cylinders.. High compression will increase the resistance inside the circuit.
2) Check your fuel injectors.. if you aren't getting a good fuel/air ratio to where you're running really lean, this will also increase the resistance in the circuit, because the spark will have less things to jump between.

Edit:
Also, if these check out fine, I'd just take it to a mechanic.. they'll have proper tools and experience to hunt the problem down, instead of you buying multiple coils, ICMs, wires, plugs etc etc.

Camaro350z28

pulled off my opti finally. nothing looks bad inside. upon more inspection there is some corrosion forming inside the opti harness itself. now i don't have money for an opti right now so itll be sitting for quite awhile. soon as I get a new harness and opti ill report back and tell you guys whether its opti or not