HT Leads

[Neil G60]

I've heard that Nology Hotwires are the best HT leads to use but saldy they're as rare as hen's teeth. Can anybody on here recommend some other decent leads for my VW Corrado G60?

Cheers

[Incorrigible]

Magnecor ??

[Neil G60]

They're my second on the list! I wondered if there was anybody else who does leads or any personal recommendations

[Pigeon]

Get some proper copper-cored HT cable and make your own up. It's generally quite easy to take the terminations off the existing leads and solder them onto copper cores and put all the rubber boots and things back on to give a pukka job. Don't bother with this carbon-string shit.

[Neil G60]

Copper core, carbon-string? Please do elaborate!

[Trooper2]

Copper core wires are excellent but give off a lot of RFI (radio frequency interference) .....may not be the best if you plan on listening to your stereo.

[stevieturbo]

Ive been using Moroso spiral wound on my last couple of engines with no problems.
I used Magnecor on my Mini. Nice leads too.

Unless you have a high powered or CD ignition system, then pretty much any decent brand lead will do fine. IMO Nology are a waste of money.

[nighthawk]

Magnecor 10mm are worth the cash,

Copper leads will give off enough interference to ensure every house you pass gets angry with you, as the nightly episode of emmerdale gets corrupted by HT emissions.

[Pigeon]

Neil G60 said:

Copper core, carbon-string? Please do elaborate!

Old-fashioned HT leads - "copper core" - are just like ordinary wire but with really thick insulation. Modern HT leads don't have any actual metal in - inside the silicone insulation is a length of this sort of carbon string stuff. They degrade gradually and do not give meaningful results when you try and test them at low voltage; you get these weird bad running problems that magically disappear when you change the HT leads in desperation. Copper core ones OTOH last for ever.

The talk of interference from using copper core leads is exaggerated. All of the vehicles I've had for any length of time have had copper core leads, either due to being old or to being bikes. Nobody has ever complained. The cars were fitted with a house tape player converted to run off 12V, which didn't suffer from interference.

[Neil G60]

Right. Thanks for the responses. As always with car tweaking there seems to be much more to it than meets the eye. At the moment I have fitted some crappy silicone leads which no doubt are copper-cored and the radio is fine. It sounds like as long as there is enough shiedling, the interference shouldn't be too bad. Surely the likes of Magnecor and Nology wouldn't be too successful if all their products caused radio interference? Failing getting hold of the Nology's I'll make do with some Magnecors I think. I'm sure the 10mm ones are great but the 8.5mm KV85's are about the limit as to what I wish to spend. £80 gets me some 8.5's:

"KV85 COMPETITION CABLE
Primarily designed for racing engines using racing ignitions,turbocharging and supercharging.Entire jacket made from aerospace extreme heat-resistant silicone rubber.Exclusive Magnecor 2.5mm Metallic
Inductance Suppressed Conductor will suppress EMI indefinitely,allowing this
cable to be used on road vehicles with any ignition and LPG gas conversions.Can be fitted into most original lead holders."

Oooo racing engines. I'm sure I'll be fine!!

[Nick_F]

The blue 8.0mm Magnecor leads have the same spiral conductor as the red 8.5mm ones - the only difference is in the amount of insulation & therefore heat tolerance.

The set I got for the Scimitar a couple of months ago work very well, and are materially better made than any others I've come across - thay've got natty little numbers on, too.

Cheap silicone-insulated leads will have carbon string conductors, not copper ones.

[Neil G60]

Thanks Nick. The G60 runs quite warm actually so I might go for the 8.5's.

[Nick_F]

No reason why not - gives you the perfect excuse to get some groovy alloy HT Lead separators too...

[Neil G60]

Ooo yeah! New shiny bits. I've only just had the engine steam cleaned too!

[Neil G60]

Got the magnecor KV85's and I'm well chuffed with them. Motorsportworld supplied them and were very friendly and helpful too.