Who still runs the plug extenders?
Discussion
Thought I would just update my spliced up old HT leads and ended up getting some nice Accel 8.8 suppressed race leads (had these 2 years already) with adjustable plug ends and some thermal socks 
ended up painting the rocker covers and plenum too 
looks better than the old weathered rocker covers in my profile pic 
doing away with the plug extenders is just one less thing to go wrong in my opinion.
ended up painting the rocker covers and plenum too looks better than the old weathered rocker covers in my profile pic doing away with the plug extenders is just one less thing to go wrong in my opinion. Edited by Simon says on Monday 23 April 22:01
I only run 1 extender!
On no. 8 cylinder due to difficult access but the rest of em have the lumention leads straight onto the plugs.
The great thing is the rubber 'boots' on the ends of leads are extremely durable and heat resistant - one of the leads slipped a little and was directly up against the exhaust manifold for at least a week with not so much as a blemish! As for the whole suppression thing I'm not sure if my lumenition leads are/aren't suppressed. Doesn't seem to make a blind bit of difference to the car that I can feel.
As you say Simon, one less thing to go wrong!
debaron said:
I only run 1 extender!
On no. 8 cylinder due to difficult access but the rest of em have the lumention leads straight onto the plugs.
The great thing is the rubber 'boots' on the ends of leads are extremely durable and heat resistant - one of the leads slipped a little and was directly up against the exhaust manifold for at least a week with not so much as a blemish! As for the whole suppression thing I'm not sure if my lumenition leads are/aren't suppressed. Doesn't seem to make a blind bit of difference to the car that I can feel.
As you say Simon, one less thing to go wrong!
Need the suppression for the EDIS & Megasquirt as without it you can get all kinds of agro i.e syc errors/loss/incorrect data etc (electrical noise) good to hear you have leads with boots so robust (makes a change) On no. 8 cylinder due to difficult access but the rest of em have the lumention leads straight onto the plugs.
The great thing is the rubber 'boots' on the ends of leads are extremely durable and heat resistant - one of the leads slipped a little and was directly up against the exhaust manifold for at least a week with not so much as a blemish! As for the whole suppression thing I'm not sure if my lumenition leads are/aren't suppressed. Doesn't seem to make a blind bit of difference to the car that I can feel.
As you say Simon, one less thing to go wrong!
slideways said:
I don't run extenders anymore i have the same boots as you, how are they holding up?
Not been on long but through a little bit of research apparently running the socks with these Accel boots/leads is overkill 
time will tell, also means I can run 16mm (small bodied) spark plugs of my choice too Simon says said:
eed the suppression for the EDIS & Megasquirt as without it you can get all kinds of agro i.e syc errors/loss/incorrect data etc (electrical noise) good to hear you have leads with boots so robust (makes a change)
I can't see an issue with ditching the plug extenders as long as you have a set of high quality heat resistant leads like those from Magnecor.Interestingly the plug extenders from Tim at ACT clearly state "Non Resisted" so their only function must have been to keep the delicate end of a standard Range Rover HT lead away from the TVR exhaust manifold.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TVR-Rover-V8-Ignition-le...
The 8.5mm Magnecor KV85 leads I have are fitted with a 2.5mm metallic inductance suppressed conductor to limit EMI, they are resistance rated at 2.2k Ohm per ft of cable.
The plugs TVR specified were NGK B7ECS, IE non resistive, so the only resistance currently in my ignition chain is what little the Magnecor KV85 leads offer.
I expect anyone running EDIS & Megasquirt could avoid EMI issues simply by fitting a set of resistor plugs.
Actually I bet even if all us old school 14CUX + dizzy & coil people switched to resister plugs the only difference we would experience is better radio reception.
The truth is modern resistor plugs really don't knock your spark back like you may assume, selecting the correct plug heat range to match your fuelling and driving style would be way more critical than weather the plugs are resistive or not.
Most Chims and Griffs I have seen seem to run on the rich side, mine is no different and that's with a Tornado chip and some time with Mark Adams on the rollers.
The problem is I don't think resistor plugs in the 7 heat range are readily available?
Going one colder with a BR8ECS or better still one hotter with a BPR6EIX would probably work OK depending on the fuel map & driving style.
With most of us spending more and more time crawling along in heavy traffic on our overcrowded streets, perhaps we could all get away with going one hotter on the plugs by fitting a 6 ?
Any how, at the moment I've got Magnecor KV85 leads, woven glass boots & plug extenders.
I think you call that OVERKILL!
Considering I still have the stone age Lucas 14CUX that wouldn't know what EMI was if you ran a metal detector over it, I think I might just ditch those extenders.
I may even try a set of iridium BPR6EIX plugs, push the advance to 33 degrees at 4,000rpm and see if I can beat Daz's 40mpg or whatever he's claiming this week
I have non resistive leads ,non resistive plugs (standard TVR Spec) and resistive extenders ..The white noise thing was checked out by Dexterio and it came up with nothing
How would it run with plugs .leads ,shrouds all resistive ?i bet you would get a weak spark..
I might sound a bit clueless but what is eddis?
How would it run with plugs .leads ,shrouds all resistive ?i bet you would get a weak spark..
I might sound a bit clueless but what is eddis?
carsy said:
Where did you get those thermal sock things from ?
http://www.thermotec.com/products/14260-cool-it-pl... Daz Ford/Motorcraft EDIS is an independent ignition control module as in take out the MS ECU and I still have spark (but fixed advance only 10 degrees) your coils on your Chim are fired directly from the MS ECU where as mine just tells the EDIS module the advance curve 
and just gets on with switching the injectors on/off there are for and against for both types but most favour your system for simplicity there are no real world performance gains from either just 2 ways to do things and EDIS as more wires 
both Macdeb and Andy W are using EDIS for your info see here http://www.autosportlabs.net/Ford_EDIS_technical_i...Simon says said:
carsy said:
Where did you get those thermal sock things from ?
http://www.thermotec.com/products/14260-cool-it-pl... Daz Ford/Motorcraft EDIS is an independent ignition control module as in take out the MS ECU and I still have spark (but fixed advance only 10 degrees) your coils on your Chim are fired directly from the MS ECU where as mine just tells the EDIS module the advance curve and just gets on with switching the injectors on/off there are for and against for both types but most favour your system for simplicity there are no real world performance gains from either just 2 ways to do things and EDIS as more wires both Macdeb and Andy W are using EDIS for your info see here http://www.autosportlabs.net/Ford_EDIS_technical_i...carsy said:
Where did you get those thermal sock things from ?
Hi carsy, this is one of those products where we get totally ripped off in the UK.A pack of 8 from Demon Tweaks is £78.52 plus VAT, plus postage
http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/motorsport/heat-shie...
I got mine from the States as they are cheap as chips over there, 30 bucks plus a bit of postage, you probably wont pay much more than £30.00 for the set of 8 all in.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Red-Heat-Protector-Sleeve-...
Another example of rip off Britain.
ChimpanLucky said:
carsy said:
Where did you get those thermal sock things from ?
Hi carsy, this is one of those products where we get totally ripped off in the UK.A pack of 8 from Demon Tweaks is £78.52 plus VAT, plus postage
http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/motorsport/heat-shie...
I got mine from the States as they are cheap as chips over there, 30 bucks plus a bit of postage, you probably wont pay much more than £30.00 for the set of 8 all in.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Red-Heat-Protector-Sleeve-...
Another example of rip off Britain.
That's them on your last link ChimpanLucky said:
Considering I still have the stone age Lucas 14CUX that wouldn't know what EMI was if you ran a metal detector over it, I think I might just ditch those extenders.
Which I would say shows just how good its original design was, after all electronics from the 1980's was pretty good at getting glitched!ChimpanLucky said:
The 8.5mm Magnecor KV85 leads I have are fitted with a 2.5mm metallic inductance suppressed conductor to limit EMI, they are resistance rated at 2.2k Ohm per ft of cable.
The plugs TVR specified were NGK B7ECS, IE non resistive, so the only resistance currently in my ignition chain is what little the Magnecor KV85 leads offer.
The truth is modern resistor plugs really don't knock your spark back like you may assume, selecting the correct plug heat range to match your fuelling and driving style would be way more critical than weather the plugs are resistive or not.
Any how, at the moment I've got Magnecor KV85 leads, woven glass boots & plug extenders.
Had a look at a car yesterday that was running really rough at idle. The owner had replaced the dizzy cap and rotor with OEM parts and Magecore race leads. It`appeared to be misfiring, but would clear as the RPM went up. A quick test of the HT peak voltages showed only 6kv, where you normally see 10-20kv. This is due to the very low resistance of the race leads, but I think this leads to a potential problem. Lets say it takes 4kv to fire the plug tip, with low resistance leads the coil will only have to reach say 5kv before the plug fires, and when it does the rate of discharge is not limited by the lead resistance, so you get a high spark current, and rapid discharge of the coil to below the point the spark can be maintained, ie a very hot but very brief spark. Basically the spark self extinguishes rapidly. This is perfect for a racing engine where there is lots of easy to ignite fuel around, and a highly compressed mixture, (ie the throttle is wide open all the time or shut). Not what you want on a TVR at idle when getting the flame front to ignite fully may take a longer burn period of the arc. This could be due to the inlet mixture being contaminated with exhaust gas from the valve overlap period, a low compression mixture as its on idle (throttle shut)and a generally old fashioned combustion chamber shape that mix the mixture as well as it could. The plugs TVR specified were NGK B7ECS, IE non resistive, so the only resistance currently in my ignition chain is what little the Magnecor KV85 leads offer.
The truth is modern resistor plugs really don't knock your spark back like you may assume, selecting the correct plug heat range to match your fuelling and driving style would be way more critical than weather the plugs are resistive or not.
Any how, at the moment I've got Magnecor KV85 leads, woven glass boots & plug extenders.
The leads where replaced with normal Bosch resistive leads and then it idle'd quite nicely with the HT voltages being a much more reasonable 10-20kv. I will try and bench test the race leads against resistive leads for spark duration at some point. My basic issue is here is dont think a resitive is bad, as very low or no resistance just as bad.
Edited by blitzracing on Thursday 3rd May 14:51
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