Leaving Nothing On The Table! Ignition Tips 11-13-11

This time around we address the sparkplug wires and how you can help out your racing program. To start all the main producers of racing sparkplug wires have similar products out today. It usually comes down to the connectors and how they feel when hooking up the wires. If asked I usually say I want a very definite click feel to the connector when it is locked on. That way there is no guessing did it make or not and you don’t have a gremlin sitting there waiting to pop its head up!

Now to the fine tuning you want to consider having done to your sparkplug wires make them (equal length). That means every wire is the same no matter what cylinder it is hooked to (pick the longest run & make them all that length). What you’re doing is making sure each cylinder sees the same amount of energy from the coil and no slowing down of the energy reaching the sparkplugs. Yes I know there is going to be some out there that will have an issue with extra wire length on the shorter runs. You just need to spend a little more time dressing out the wires so they lay out properly.  

This change has gains very similar to equal length headers, equal length intake runners and getting the intake ports on a set of heads right. When done right these kind of changes can make the difference in the race car just running into the top 10 or getting into the top 5 and the money!

The thing to keep in mind with electricity, it acts and behaves very much like water or fuel. Get the flow & pressure right and you have all the water or fuel you could possibly use.  And when added to other things I have suggested you can count on the race car performing better on the track.


As for the coil wire, its length is determined by location of the coil itself. You want to keep the coil away from infrared heat so it will provide an unchanging output. The other factor is the race car itself and the layout. You want the total length of the coil wire as short as possible without killing the coil with heat.

As for the dressing out issue we like to use T-clips to sort out the wires.    http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=23019&catid=858  This link will give you an idea of what I am talking about. The T-clip allows you to lay the wires out so nothing rubs or gets in the way of other things. The other benefit is they keep the wires spaced ¼ inch away from each other so it keeps the crossfire issue out of the picture. When you’re dealing with high energy ignitions you always want to keep a good sized air between each sparkplug wires.

As before if you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Pat Collins
TechWest Racing Services
MSD®Ignition Upgrade / Repair/ Technical Support  
704-995-4286
techwest@techwestracing.com
www.techwestracing.com