<all><plug wires>Stock vs. Nology vs. Whatever

[Pearson-Franks Family <pearsonf@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Scott/Ron/Chris/Digest:

I love the Digest, and the chance to exchange facts, experiences and
opinions.  That said, here come mine on the plugwire thread.  There are
lots of angles to look at this from; I pick two:  the energy delivered
to the plug gap, and the likelihood of 'loose horsepower' available to a
mere spark improvement.

Energy Delivered to the Plug

Let's just assume for a moment, that a particular amount of energy
(high voltage electricity) is available at the output of your ignition
coil.  In older cars, this is typically transmitted via the high tension
lead to a distributor of one flavor or another, then to another wire
(the wires typically in question in this thread) and then via a
connector to the spark plug.  If life was perfect, all of that
energy would be delivered to the plug.  It ain't.  Ignoring for the
moment the DC resistance losses of the copper and any radio suppression
resistors (non-zero, but not large), what else happens?

As the spark current traverses the plugwire, it creates a magnetic field
around the wire (remembering back to your high school physics.  Riiiiight!).
If the field encounters nothing, end of story.  But let's say it _does_
encounter something (lossy insulators, scum on the outside of the wires,
metal objects, etc.)  The expanding magnetic field crossing another
conductor induces current in the other conductor (more basic physics).
Here comes the fun part:  when the pulse has passed, the field collapses,
reversing the process.  But what happened to the induced current?  It
flows again, but in the opposite direction, therefore having the same
effect on the plugwire that the plugwire had on it:  it induces a
voltage in the plugwire.  But guess what:  the opposite voltage.
This subtracts from the original voltage, reducing the energy delivered
to the plug.

So from a practical point of view, I have had many a 100K+ E12 or E28
motor smooth out significantly with the application of new wires.
Lower losses, better spark, smoother idling, all that.  And what about
the 'spiral-wound' or 'silicone-sheathed' or other 'high performance'
wires?   Clearly it is possible to reduce losses.  For instance, your
newer cars with a coil-per-plug and _zero_ plugwire lengths benefit
from this application of physics.  Now, what is the practical difference
between new stock, old stock, new 'performance', Nology or whatever?
Answering that would take a well-designed, controlled, repeated test,
which I have yet to see evidence of.  So on to the second part.

'Loose' Horsepower

This is a much more subjective argument:  if there were loads of loose
ponies running around, and they were rounded up by a technology as
simple as Nologies, dontcha think somebody would have worked this out
a long time ago?  It is my speculation that replacement of old, lossy
plugwires with _any_ new set will yield an improvement larger than the
potential differences between various new sets.

Just my experience, Larry F.

Larry Franks
Issaquah, Washington
'86 535i - Shark-infested (Authentic chip!)
'86 535i - Sharked (recently)
'83 245 GLT (Swedish iron)

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