SPARK PLUG WIRES

I have to ask what is wrong with MSD wires?

 

So if there is snothing wrong with the MSD wires why look for something else? The only way that you can get a horsepower gain from switching wires is if the original wires you had exceeded their life and were bad.

 

I agree that the wires do not last long especially the coil wire because it is used eight times more than a plug wire. The coil wire almost needs to be changed every other race weekend. I believe that all the plug wires that are available will transfer the same amount of spark from a MAG 44 given they are all new. Since you cannot use solid core wires and everybody as far as I know uses the same basic core I doubt that there are any longer lasting wires. If there is I sure would also like to know about them. I am going to ask my friend at MSD what exactly breaks down in a wire and I will let you all know.

 

According to MSD what typically breaks down is the outer insulation. The core holds up very nicely for the most part but the high voltage and current produced by the 44 amp magneto will cause the secondary insulation to break down fairly quickly. That is the real problem with trying to use a meter to check the resistance on the plug wires. It is an important test because if the wire has higher than specified resistance you know for a fact that you have a bad wire. The problem is that if the resistance is correct it means that the core is good but it doesn't tell you anything about the outer jackets capability to contain the high voltage. There is unfortunately no solid answer to your question. Many people run the wires for many laps without any problem. On the other hand I have seen people spend a great deal of time and money chasing mystery problems that were eventually resolved by replacing the wires that have been on the car all season. Many of the Top Fuel Teams will change wire sets every 2-3 races and will always start eliminations with fresh coil wires. It is expensive to change wires so frequently but one bad run because of an old wire can cost a fuel team far more that a seasons worth of plug wires. The unfortunate side effect of such a powerful magneto is that we have rendered the plug wires disposable.