decosse Posted February 19, 2004 Report Share Posted February 19, 2004 I replaced my ignition wires less than a year ago after the originals lasted almost 9. I had replaced them with AC-Delco which is what was supplied by GMParts Direct. Now they are lighting up like a Christmas tree, causing serious mis-fire issues. So, I wanted to try something different butin OEM fit - I bought a set by Standard: these were much better but in the dark I can still see some snapping going on between adjacent wires, and even between one of the terminal boots at the coil end. I really don't like the way they fit on the coils either - don't have that really positive snap to them. So - what are my alternatives? Brand Part # AC Delco 628Q Bosch 09723 Autolite Professional 96849 Autolite Pro-fit 86849 GM 12096435 Magencor 80216 or 85216 (8 mm or 8.5mm) I'm almost tempted to buy a generic fit high quality set like MSD Recommendations PLEASE! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeb Posted February 19, 2004 Report Share Posted February 19, 2004 so how did your car run while your wires were acting up? miss/stumble or what? my dad works at a shop and can get most parts at cost. he is getting me a set of wires for my 96 STS. i have a slight stumble/miss. so ac-delco is not GM? are they made by separate companies? I told him to get me OEM wires. I called a dealer and the list is $170. gm parts direct were about $110. my dad says his will be about $90. he said they should be in today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Posted February 19, 2004 Report Share Posted February 19, 2004 I tried a lot of wires with mine, carquest, borg-warner, and AC Delco. The AC Delcos seemed to work the best with me. The borg warner work O.K. The Carquest ones I didn't like very much, they seemed to go bad very quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeb Posted February 19, 2004 Report Share Posted February 19, 2004 ok, I'll ask the question. how is it that you tried several brands? did you put on a set and say "nope, I don't like that". and than replace them with another different brand set? i did not know most stores would allow you to return electrical parts. if i put on a new set of wires and my miss did not go away i would figure it was another part causing the problem. I did change plugs. no help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Posted February 19, 2004 Report Share Posted February 19, 2004 My car is 12 years old. When the wires go bad, I replace them with different ones. I've had a lot of time to try out different brands. I didn't like the carquest ones because they couldn't take the heat from the exhaust mainfolds very long. At first I thought that they had come loose from the plastic mounting brackets, but they hadn't, they were just not very good wires for the caddy. That's probably the #1 thing that destroys spark plug wires, heat. It breaks down the insulation around the wire, and causes problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Posted February 19, 2004 Report Share Posted February 19, 2004 Have you tried to put some di-electric grease around your boots? Normally this is used so you can remove the boot easier when you have to replace them, but it also acts as an insulator. If you are having arcing around the boots, try putting some di-electric grease in the boots. Be very careful not to put the grease where the plug makes electrical contact with the wire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeb Posted February 19, 2004 Report Share Posted February 19, 2004 I will put grease on the boots when I put the new wires on. 8 yrs is long enough for OE wires. I figure give it a shot. I do know that electrical connectors are sometimes filled with silicone before assembly. this keeps out moisture. the metal-to-metal contact point is surrounded by the silicone and prevents corrosion of the contact point. works great when the connection is buried. keeps out moisture. i wonder if the di-electric grease works the same way? or maybe its to make boot removal easier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
decosse Posted February 19, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 19, 2004 Answers to some of above: There was a slight misfire in the engine - not really detectable most of the time; my initial problem was failing smog test which led me to investigating the ignition system. When viewed in a dark garage, (no lights on) the whole harness was arcing & crackling, huge purple light show all up & down the wires . I bought the Standard Brand set from my local parts store - the problem was an order of magnitude better but there was still some visible arcing around one of the coil boots - it was arcing directly out of the part where the wire exits the boot. There was also some arcing betwen the wires in a couple of places. I tried the grease, at points it looked like it was tracking, made no difference - Overall, pretty disappointing for a brand new set of wires. The Standards look almost identical to the OEM. I believe the OEM is ACDelco, just gave the different part #'s for reference. I just ordered a set of Magnecor 8.5mm wires from Ultrarev. They drop ship them directly from Magnecor. AWESOME price ~ $147 plus shipping. I think this is one of best out there, hopefully no more problems. http://www.ultrarev.com Joeb, my wires lasted less than a year so OEM, even discounted might not be the bargain they appear - the list on the Magnecor is $223 so the Ultrarev price really worth the extra $50-$60 (plus shipping of course). See the Magnecor website http://www.magnecor.com/magnecor1/main.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeb Posted February 19, 2004 Report Share Posted February 19, 2004 what kind of resistance per foot is the magnecor wire? I thought new cars needed the high resistance for noise suppresion? there is a lot of mis-info out there. low resistance is better since more energy is sent to the plug. yada-yada. check out the jacobs site or msd. everyone has their own take on spark technology. i just want a smooth running engine. an overhead cam, injected motor makes enough clicking and clacking. i do not want anymore noise from arcing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonA Posted February 19, 2004 Report Share Posted February 19, 2004 ACDelco is a separate brand from the OEM parts. I would always trust the OEM parts. Many, if not most all of the time the OEM parts will have an ACDelco box or label...but not always. I do not personally know what ACDelco is providing for spark plug cables...that is why I alwasy specify the OEM parts from the Cad or GM parts counter. Huh! I always thought that the AC-Delco wire set you ordered through Advance or GM Parts Direct or any other place was going to be the exact same wire set that you would buy at the parts counter at the Cadillac dealership. I think they would have the same part numbers, no? I know this is the case with many parts (like spark plugs and EGR valves for instance), but maybe it's not the case with the plug wires. Jason(2001 STS, White Diamond) "When you turn your car on...does it return the favor?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dloch Posted February 19, 2004 Report Share Posted February 19, 2004 ACDelco is a separate brand from the OEM parts. I would always trust the OEM parts. Many, if not most all of the time the OEM parts will have an ACDelco box or label...but not always. I do not personally know what ACDelco is providing for spark plug cables...that is why I alwasy specify the OEM parts from the Cad or GM parts counter. Huh! I always thought that the AC-Delco wire set you ordered through Advance or GM Parts Direct or any other place was going to be the exact same wire set that you would buy at the parts counter at the Cadillac dealership. I think they would have the same part numbers, no? I know this is the case with many parts (like spark plugs and EGR valves for instance), but maybe it's not the case with the plug wires. I did as well.... considering I just bought and installed a set of AC Delco Plug wires.... Dennis Dennis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
decosse Posted February 19, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 19, 2004 There will ALWAYS be a light show with any high voltage system in the dark. The purpleish glow is called "corona discharge" and can be seen on almost any Northstar in a dark place, especially on a humid night. It is just the magnetic field created around the wires ionizing the atmosphere around the wires. Perfectly normal and not a sign of anything wrong with the wires. What I saw (both instances) was not corona - I used to work on a HV system that operated at 200kV so I know a bit about it! Corona is ionization of the air around the wire caused by stray electrons in the field around it - an arc is a positive discharge away from the wire to a different groubd source than that intended - i.e. the principal plug. There was definite arcing - exteremely bad- on the old set; there was the distinct arcing I described on the new set. Reason I bought the Magnecor was less for the conductor but the 8.5mm insulation, given the problems associated with the 7mm OEM's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djazzmo Posted February 20, 2004 Report Share Posted February 20, 2004 ACDelco is a separate brand from the OEM parts. I would always trust the OEM parts. Many, if not most all of the time the OEM parts will have an ACDelco box or label...but not always. I do not personally know what ACDelco is providing for spark plug cables...that is why I alwasy specify the OEM parts from the Cad or GM parts counter. Huh! I always thought that the AC-Delco wire set you ordered through Advance or GM Parts Direct or any other place was going to be the exact same wire set that you would buy at the parts counter at the Cadillac dealership. I think they would have the same part numbers, no? I know this is the case with many parts (like spark plugs and EGR valves for instance), but maybe it's not the case with the plug wires. I did as well.... considering I just bought and installed a set of AC Delco Plug wires.... Dennis Well count me in too because I thought they were the same also. I installed a set about a month ago. I noticed that the spark plug numbers were not marked on the Delcos like they were on the OEM. I thought that was strange if they were supposed to be the same as the OEM. Now I am wondering if the 1-2 MPG drop and ever so slight miss are due to the $109 wire set. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cpk Posted February 20, 2004 Report Share Posted February 20, 2004 ACDelco is a separate brand from the OEM parts. I would always trust the OEM parts. Many, if not most all of the time the OEM parts will have an ACDelco box or label...but not always. I do not personally know what ACDelco is providing for spark plug cables...that is why I alwasy specify the OEM parts from the Cad or GM parts counter. Huh! I always thought that the AC-Delco wire set you ordered through Advance or GM Parts Direct or any other place was going to be the exact same wire set that you would buy at the parts counter at the Cadillac dealership. I think they would have the same part numbers, no? I know this is the case with many parts (like spark plugs and EGR valves for instance), but maybe it's not the case with the plug wires. I did as well.... considering I just bought and installed a set of AC Delco Plug wires.... Dennis Well count me in too because I thought they were the same also. I installed a set about a month ago. I noticed that the spark plug numbers were not marked on the Delcos like they were on the OEM. I thought that was strange if they were supposed to be the same as the OEM. Now I am wondering if the 1-2 MPG drop and ever so slight miss are due to the $109 wire set. I knew that ACDelco was a separate company now, but I guess I assumed that they were still essentially OEM parts. I pretty much checked ACDelco first. If they didn't have it, then I went to the dealer. It gets even more confusing since GM dealers are also typically ACDelco dealers. Is there any way to tell (other than going to the parts counter) when Delco is OEM and when it isn't? On a related note, I put ACDelco ball joints on my Allante over the summer. I barely drove it in the fall and winter and one has already failed. Jack the wheel off the ground and you can easily see how the ball/socket joint has worn. I greased them when I installed them, and again just before winter. Maybe put 500 miles on them. First time I had problems with a Delco part. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cpk Posted February 20, 2004 Report Share Posted February 20, 2004 I know this is a pipe dream, but wouldn't it be great if GM made it just a little easier for those of us who work on our own cars to obtain OEM parts? Dealers typically aren't open late or on weekends (at least the parts counters aren't) and their markup is ridiculous, even when they never have to carry the part in stock. There are a couple of discount online dealers, but their catalogs leave a lot to be desired. I would be more than willing to go straight to GM for all my parts if I could. If I can get them reasonably from some dealers online, I have to assume that both GM and the dealer are making a profit on the parts. If the stuff is in their catalogs, I'm already doing all the work to ID the part as it is. Plus, if we had one contact company, with access to all GM's warehouses, we could get the stuff faster, which is another reason many of us go with aftermarket stuff. I have to wait weeks sometimes to get parts via a dealer. When your car is down, and you have to choose between "almost as good" now and for less cost and "best" for more money and waiting 2 weeks, "almost as good" starts looking pretty darn good. Let the dealers use the parts on their repairs and let us consumers get the stuff straight from the source. Sorry if this ended up sounding like an anti-dealer rant. Its given by a very pro-GM consumer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cpk Posted February 20, 2004 Report Share Posted February 20, 2004 OK. One more post. Sorry to dominate the thread and drag it a bit off on a tangent. I just went to GM's web site (www.gm.com) On the home page, under Parts & Services for Consumers, guess who shows up as one of the sources? ACDelco That makes it appear that ACDelco has GM's imprimatur The other "part" source they list is "Genuine GM Parts" which goes to http://www.gmgoodwrench.com/. Of course, you can't actually purchase anything on that site, it just directs you to a local dealer. The whole parts thing is a pet peeve of mine. Especially when I read on the goodwrench site how great the OEM stuff is and how bad the counterfeit stuff is, but then realize I can only get those great parts through the same dealers who typically can't be trusted to reliably fix the cars GM is putting out. I don't know how many people out there are like me, but there's no way I'm taking my car to the GM dealer unless its under warranty. They (the dealer, and thus GM) aren't getting that business from me, period. I don't trust them (the dealers) as long as they're independent from GM and it will be a long time before that will change. Forcing me to get parts through the dealer just means I'm going to have to use aftermarket when I can justify it, even though I don't want to, because frankly, the dealer network sucks as a part source for consumers. From what I've seen, it isn't all that timely of a source for the dealers themselves either. That's business GM could be getting from me and others like me with very little effort and virtually no downside to the dealer network (because those of us who would buy the parts aren't going to the dealer now anyway). As a further upside, they could capture a huge chunk of the Internet-based aftermarket business for their products. Imagine if half the people who are buying generic parts on the web from JCWhitney, NAPA, PartsAmerica, etc. for their GM cars were buying OEM parts instead. Maybe it wouldn't be a huge revenue source, but wouldn't that improve the perception of quality of GM cars (assuming OEM parts really are better, which I believe they are)? Considering what GM spends on advertising, its a bargain and they make money on the parts too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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