Can aluminum foil on the plug wires cause a prob??
05-06-2003, 11:09 AM
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Can aluminum foil on the plug wires cause a prob?? I put some around 3 of the wires that lay right on my headers. Can this casue any type of miss-fire problem.???? I did this cause the last ones melted right to the headers. Thanks for any input.
05-06-2003, 11:34 AM
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Re: Can aluminum foil on the plug wires cause a prob?? Wow, I've never heard of anyone doing that. The problem is aluminum is a conductor and eventhough plug wires are insulated, you can still get arcs through the wire. Take out that foil right away!
I remember Summit or somewhere had some sort of heat insulator for plug wires.
I remember Summit or somewhere had some sort of heat insulator for plug wires.
05-06-2003, 01:06 PM
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Re: Can aluminum foil on the plug wires cause a prob?? Well i did this last summer on one plug wire and it worked great. Does any one know for a fact that this will cause a problem??? Thanks for any input
05-06-2003, 01:27 PM
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Re: Can aluminum foil on the plug wires cause a prob?? If you have perfect plug wire insulation, then no problem.
If you have a pinhole, then the air insulation resistance
to the nearest grounded metal might still let you run fine
without loss of spark current to the plug gap. But, if you
wrap foil, then you are going to shorten the external HV
leakage path perhaps.
"It's not a problem unless something goes wrong" - words
to launch a shuttle by.
I think that if you're looking for thermal protection,
you'd be better off with some of that 3M fiberglass
electrical tape. Good stuff, nonconductive and low thermal
conduction.
If you have a pinhole, then the air insulation resistance
to the nearest grounded metal might still let you run fine
without loss of spark current to the plug gap. But, if you
wrap foil, then you are going to shorten the external HV
leakage path perhaps.
"It's not a problem unless something goes wrong" - words
to launch a shuttle by.
I think that if you're looking for thermal protection,
you'd be better off with some of that 3M fiberglass
electrical tape. Good stuff, nonconductive and low thermal
conduction.
05-06-2003, 01:44 PM
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Re: Can aluminum foil on the plug wires cause a prob?? well i hope your right cause i have a missfire in 3 cylinders. they are also the ones that have the foil raped around them. The only thing is i did this same trick last year with no problems. The reasone why i ask is cause i just rebuilt my opti **** and i though maybe that was the problem. any one else have any input. thanks guys
05-07-2003, 12:28 AM
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Re: Can aluminum foil on the plug wires cause a prob?? Putting foil on the wires is totally the wrong thing to do, get it off and put on true insulators that are made to do the job. You can cause all sorts of things the least of which is a misfire. You have created a path of HV that could spike and kill a lot of other electronics in your car. 
