Fantastic tip on how to crimp and install boots on a set of universal wires, for those of you that want a nice set of wires but don't want to shell out 125 bucks, this is the way to go, yes there is better out there, and yes im sure if you want to purchase a can of brake clean after you have assembled the boot with dielectric grease you can clean it out with that, and rinse with warm soapy water repeat with the rest. personally i have been doing this for 30+ years and have never never prematurely burnt up any wires, nor had one fail due to having grease on it, as a matter of the fact i normally will coat the inside of my boot with hi temp dielectric grease to seal out water, and make it easier to remove from plug when service or repair times comes around. The trick is to not glob it on, and have the correct tool for the job. Peace out!
I haven't purchased a make your own set in a long time. although they are great. all the sets I've had come with what you need to crimp the ends using a vise and hammer. I welded the two steel halves to a pair of vise grips and it works exactly the the crimping tool in this video.
+CIA Assassin Many good crimping tools for all sorts of crimps and Oetiker clamps have been made from visegrips. They practically beg to be modified and modding your own saves money.
Informative video, and answered all my questions, so thanks for that. It's just a shame that when you buy a set of ACCEL leads, you have to actually do this. I didn't realise that my set of new ACCEL leads needed terminating when I bought them. It's going to be easier for me to buy something else, since I don;t have the correct crimping tool. Not happy....
Also, a resistance test result on a cold wire, as compared to the same wire tested at operating temperature, will be very different. Some grease will be displaced, NOT all of it. The grease will settle into tiny scratches and imperfections in the connection, thus creating a barrier. If you put you put tester probe on the greased connection, without 'stabbing' it with the point, you will most certainly get a different reading...
There is no barrier with a tight-fitting metal-to-metal contact, because the grease is *displaced*. A test doesn't need to be done with everything installed and running, because that changes nothing. Just take a spark plug and a bare plug wire terminal, snap it on the plug and do an ohm test between the terminal itself and the spark plug's terminal that it's connected to. Then take it off, gob as much grease on the terminals as you want, and snap it on again. No measurable difference.
You think electrical theory is in dispute by anyone? It is one of the most tested, tried, and true theories of all time. You're able to be on CZcams right now because of electrical theory. And no, high resistance is *not* why OEM wires fail. They eventually fail because they use carbon conductors, which slowly burns away. The aftermarket spiral core wires use a different method of acheiving resistance (coil effect), and they do not fail, at least the quality ones don't.
I'm past "old school" into "ancient school" and solder my wires to the connector using paste flux then clean up with alcohol. I only do that for motorcycle wires because of their environment. One set of Accel V8 wires turns into MANY sets of Harley wires and does it much cheaper than the high-priced "motorcycle" wire sets. You can find a variety of crimpers and don't need to buy one just for wires. Study online, and buy quality wiring tools the first time. I look at what commercial electricians use for good gear.
I bought a set of accessories about 15 yrs ago and the fit good. I guess those were discontinued cause i can't find them. So the only sets I've been able to find require terminating the ends. Not good unless you buy a $40 pair of crimper that will only get used for this operation. This is b.s. cause if I wanted to build my own wires I wouldn't have bought accel.
First of all, the resistance is never too high in new wires. They are made with enough resistance to suppress RFI, but not enough resistance to prevent the spark plugs from getting their required arc-over voltage. In quality spiral core wires, this resistance will never change. In OEM carbon conductor wires, the carbon slowly burns away, and eventually the resistance will be too high for the spark plugs to consistently receive their required arc-over voltage. It is then time to replace them.
No MaximRecoil, my warning here is based on 10 years of building 800hp Sprint Car motors. When you put grease on anything, there is a barrier between the connection. This barrier is what reduces friction between the two surfaces. In an electrical connection, this barrier is undesirable, and will in time cause the ignition system to work harder than it should. A spark plug wire connection should be metal to metal, with no grease of any kind.
My post is full of facts and experience - not electrical theory. OEM wires in fact do have high resistance for RFI reasons - and that is exactly why they fail prematurely. You can choose to believe what you want, and it is obvious that you have lots to learn - so let me give you some advice -- "only a fool thinks he knows everything he learned in a book". Good luck MaximRecoil, and keep buying those high resistance spark plug wires - manufacturers love your electrical theories....
Also, the insulation around the wire does not suppress RFI in any way, shape, or form. The idea that silicone rubber can stop radio waves is laughable to the extreme. The construction of the wire *is* how RFI is suppressed, and in OEM wires that is done by using high resistance carbon conductor. In aftermarked "spiral core" wires, it is done by wrapping tiny wire in a spiral around the core, creating a coil effect, which creates resistance.
do not use dielectric grease... it will cause resistance. .. I use corosion x to lube the wire.. and install the boot first. .. slide it back on the wire.. then crimp... you can use dielectric grease outside the boot.. and around the outer area of the wire... thats my way..and a q tip to do the inside.. ps my name is peter. using family account
... And "bending the conductor back over the insulation and then crimping the terminal on" is the way factories generally do it. I have a new set of Denso wires that are crimped like this, and pretty much all factory wires are crimped like this; this is the only way to crimp standard plug wire terminals. Corona discharge happens on worn out plug wires; it has nothing to do with the style of crimp. The insulation prevents it on wires that are in good condition.
looks like there is another video from Accel for points wires, and for those they do show the booting before crimping. I guess since you can't push the cap end of the terminal on points thru the wire end of the boot, they specify that on the points video. the paper instructions in the box are therefore pertinent to points style
Cold vs. hot will be different by the same amount, with or without grease, assuming a properly fitting terminal, which makes the issue irrelevant. You stab it with the point to displace the grease, obviously. BTW, the dialectric strength of dialectric grease is about 500 volts/mil. Not only is the thickness of what's left of the grease after displacement much thinner than a mil, but the voltage to a spark plug is 12K-25K volts or more. In other words, you don't know what you're talking about.
There is nothing implied, and there is nothing to concede. Resistance testing a new wire on a bench will usually bring favorable results. Actual real world testing (and experience) will have you change your view on putting die-electric grease on a spark plug wire connection.
It is impossible to do a proper resistance test on a spark plug wire that is connected to a spark plug while it is installed in an engine, and while the spark plug is operating at temperature. Real world operation - experience - and failure inspection is the real way to come to my warning. Die-electric grease should be used to keep the outside environment away from the electrical connection - it should not be used on the actual connection...
"You obviously have no real world experience in this matter." Your attempted crystal ball reading is dismissed. "Anything that resists current/voltage to a spark plug arc gap will cause premature failure of ignition system parts." Is that a joke? Do you realize that most plug wires have high resistance intentionally? Do you realize that resistor plugs do as well? It's for RFI suppression. As long as the plugs get their required arc-over voltage (much less than the coil can output), it works.
Your post is full of laughably bad info. *All* OEM wires have high resistance to suppress RFI, and OEM plugs are usually "resistor plugs", for the same reason. Coils can output ~45K volts; the arc-over voltage of spark plugs is less than half that. Spark plugs only use the voltage required to arc-over, and no more. Also, the voltage at the plugs *far exceeds* the dialectric strength of a microscopically thin layer of dialectric grease, thus it is adding *no* resistance anyway. Is that clear?
There is no benefit to using "low resistance" plug wires. Again, plugs only use enough voltage to arc-over, and no more. The coil is capable of outputting way more voltage than a spark plug requires, thus there is a lot of room for resistance in the wires and plugs without affecting performance. Let's say "zero resistance" wires allow 45K volts through, and normal wires allow 35K volts through; the plug is only going to use 12-25K volts to arc-over either way; i.e., it makes no difference.
... And you clearly have no idea what dialectric strength is, because if you did, you would know that at sparkplug voltages (at least 12,000 volts), an extremely thin layer of dialectric grease is not dialectric at all, because 12,000+ volts *far* exceeds it dialectric strength of 500 volts/mil.
NEVER put dielectric grease on the conductor or terminal end of any electrical connection. Dielectric grease opposes current flow and makes it harder for voltage to jump the spark gap. Dielectric grease is used on the outer jacket of the wire or the boot of the connection - NEVER EVER ON THE METAL CONNECTION. Maybe this is why Accel products truly dont give you any advantage over stock replacements....
Dielectric grease is non-conductive, obviously (which is what "dielectric" means), but a tight metal-to-metal contact displaces the grease at the point(s) of contact, and conductivity is not affected. Your warning here is based on intuition, not on actual measurements. If you had done real measurements with an ohm meter, you would have found no difference between dry and with dielectric grease, assuming a properly tight-fitting terminal.
You are absolutely dead wrong. The absolute best wire to use on any ignition system is a Granatelli wire. They have 0 ZERO ohms per foot. RFI suppression comes from the insulation around the conductor and wire construction. Granatelli uses a ferrite ring to suppress RFI/EMI issues. Resistance in spark plug wires is BAD. Thats why coil over plug systems are developed. Do yourself a favor and youtube search 'granatelli dominates ignition wire test'. Maybe you'll learn something - but I doubt it..
Go ahead and do that to your car..Reply back in 6 months and tell me what failed in your ignition system..Or, if you race, tell me what happened after about 2 or 3 races or so...lol
You obviously have no real world experience in this matter. Anything that resists current/voltage to a spark plug arc gap will cause premature failure of ignition system parts. Please base your position on real world results - not perfect world bench tests. Furthermore, bending the conductor back over the insulation and then crimping the terminal on (like in the video) will cause failure also. That causes the 'corona effect' at the crimp, and the wire will fail in time..
Fantastic tip on how to crimp and install boots on a set of universal wires, for those of you that want a nice set of wires but don't want to shell out 125 bucks, this is the way to go, yes there is better out there, and yes im sure if you want to purchase a can of brake clean after you have assembled the boot with dielectric grease you can clean it out with that, and rinse with warm soapy water repeat with the rest. personally i have been doing this for 30+ years and have never never prematurely burnt up any wires, nor had one fail due to having grease on it, as a matter of the fact i normally will coat the inside of my boot with hi temp dielectric grease to seal out water, and make it easier to remove from plug when service or repair times comes around. The trick is to not glob it on, and have the correct tool for the job. Peace out!
Hi!!!
I haven't purchased a make your own set in a long time. although they are great. all the sets I've had come with what you need to crimp the ends using a vise and hammer. I welded the two steel halves to a pair of vise grips and it works exactly the the crimping tool in this video.
+CIA Assassin Many good crimping tools for all sorts of crimps and Oetiker clamps have been made from visegrips. They practically beg to be modified and modding your own saves money.
That beeping towards the end made me think it was in my house lol
Please show how to make it for the points style cap. Then you will have my attention. Thanks.
Informative video, and answered all my questions, so thanks for that. It's just a shame that when you buy a set of ACCEL leads, you have to actually do this. I didn't realise that my set of new ACCEL leads needed terminating when I bought them. It's going to be easier for me to buy something else, since I don;t have the correct crimping tool. Not happy....
Wouldent it be easier to install the boot first and pull the terminal back in after crimping?
We don't need your big brain thinkin thoughts round here boy!
thats how I do it
Also, a resistance test result on a cold wire, as compared to the same wire tested at operating temperature, will be very different.
Some grease will be displaced, NOT all of it. The grease will settle into tiny scratches and imperfections in the connection, thus creating a barrier. If you put you put tester probe on the greased connection, without 'stabbing' it with the point, you will most certainly get a different reading...
There is no barrier with a tight-fitting metal-to-metal contact, because the grease is *displaced*. A test doesn't need to be done with everything installed and running, because that changes nothing. Just take a spark plug and a bare plug wire terminal, snap it on the plug and do an ohm test between the terminal itself and the spark plug's terminal that it's connected to. Then take it off, gob as much grease on the terminals as you want, and snap it on again. No measurable difference.
I bought a box of wires and it came with two different bags of terminals. Oneven silver the other gold, why?
one set of boots if for fat spark plugs, the other set is for the skinny type
The boots are for the distributor end, ( boot & gold ) regular points dizzy and ( boot & silver ) for HEI dizzy.
Thank you 58chev
You think electrical theory is in dispute by anyone? It is one of the most tested, tried, and true theories of all time. You're able to be on CZcams right now because of electrical theory.
And no, high resistance is *not* why OEM wires fail. They eventually fail because they use carbon conductors, which slowly burns away. The aftermarket spiral core wires use a different method of acheiving resistance (coil effect), and they do not fail, at least the quality ones don't.
were can i get those crimpers at ? or somthin that will work the same
I'm past "old school" into "ancient school" and solder my wires to the connector using paste flux then clean up with alcohol. I only do that for motorcycle wires because of their environment. One set of Accel V8 wires turns into MANY sets of Harley wires and does it much cheaper than the high-priced "motorcycle" wire sets. You can find a variety of crimpers and don't need to buy one just for wires. Study online, and buy quality wiring tools the first time. I look at what commercial electricians use for good gear.
I bought a set of accessories about 15 yrs ago and the fit good. I guess those were discontinued cause i can't find them. So the only sets I've been able to find require terminating the ends. Not good unless you buy a $40 pair of crimper that will only get used for this operation. This is b.s. cause if I wanted to build my own wires I wouldn't have bought accel.
First of all, the resistance is never too high in new wires. They are made with enough resistance to suppress RFI, but not enough resistance to prevent the spark plugs from getting their required arc-over voltage. In quality spiral core wires, this resistance will never change. In OEM carbon conductor wires, the carbon slowly burns away, and eventually the resistance will be too high for the spark plugs to consistently receive their required arc-over voltage. It is then time to replace them.
When I cut the yellow part if I cut the heavy gauge copper-nickel alloy conductor need to cut an other piece an leve the spring on
No MaximRecoil, my warning here is based on 10 years of building 800hp Sprint Car motors. When you put grease on anything, there is a barrier between the connection. This barrier is what reduces friction between the two surfaces. In an electrical connection, this barrier is undesirable, and will in time cause the ignition system to work harder than it should. A spark plug wire connection should be metal to metal, with no grease of any kind.
Let me ask you this - What happens when the resistance in the plug wire gets (or is) too high?
My post is full of facts and experience - not electrical theory. OEM wires in fact do have high resistance for RFI reasons - and that is exactly why they fail prematurely. You can choose to believe what you want, and it is obvious that you have lots to learn - so let me give you some advice -- "only a fool thinks he knows everything he learned in a book". Good luck MaximRecoil, and keep buying those high resistance spark plug wires - manufacturers love your electrical theories....
What happened to the accel timing computers can u still buy them ?
Given that you have no further arguments, your tacit concession on the matter is noted.
does the Chevy HEI need resistor or Non- resistor spark plugs???
Also, the insulation around the wire does not suppress RFI in any way, shape, or form. The idea that silicone rubber can stop radio waves is laughable to the extreme. The construction of the wire *is* how RFI is suppressed, and in OEM wires that is done by using high resistance carbon conductor. In aftermarked "spiral core" wires, it is done by wrapping tiny wire in a spiral around the core, creating a coil effect, which creates resistance.
Where did u get your crimper
do not use dielectric grease... it will cause resistance. .. I use corosion x to lube the wire.. and install the boot first. .. slide it back on the wire.. then crimp... you can use dielectric grease outside the boot.. and around the outer area of the wire... thats my way..and a q tip to do the inside.. ps my name is peter. using family account
good vid
Why wouldn't yall just do this before sending out....
... And "bending the conductor back over the insulation and then crimping the terminal on" is the way factories generally do it. I have a new set of Denso wires that are crimped like this, and pretty much all factory wires are crimped like this; this is the only way to crimp standard plug wire terminals. Corona discharge happens on worn out plug wires; it has nothing to do with the style of crimp. The insulation prevents it on wires that are in good condition.
SO IF I BUY A COIL PACK I DO NOT NEED WIRES?
.... the in-box directions are TOTALLY DIFFERENT!
I want those ratchet crimpers !!!!
go buy some, they are about thirty bucks online.
Very different from the directions provided in the package.
i know- the paper instructions say to boot the wire first and then crimp and then drag the boot back towards the end
looks like there is another video from Accel for points wires, and for those they do show the booting before crimping. I guess since you can't push the cap end of the terminal on points thru the wire end of the boot, they specify that on the points video. the paper instructions in the box are therefore pertinent to points style
The jaws of his pliers look like a murray eel.
Cold vs. hot will be different by the same amount, with or without grease, assuming a properly fitting terminal, which makes the issue irrelevant.
You stab it with the point to displace the grease, obviously. BTW, the dialectric strength of dialectric grease is about 500 volts/mil. Not only is the thickness of what's left of the grease after displacement much thinner than a mil, but the voltage to a spark plug is 12K-25K volts or more. In other words, you don't know what you're talking about.
There is nothing implied, and there is nothing to concede. Resistance testing a new wire on a bench will usually bring favorable results. Actual real world testing (and experience) will have you change your view on putting die-electric grease on a spark plug wire connection.
It is impossible to do a proper resistance test on a spark plug wire that is connected to a spark plug while it is installed in an engine, and while the spark plug is operating at temperature. Real world operation - experience - and failure inspection is the real way to come to my warning. Die-electric grease should be used to keep the outside environment away from the electrical connection - it should not be used on the actual connection...
Yes, you did tacitly concede by replying with no argument. Also, see above.
"You obviously have no real world experience in this matter."
Your attempted crystal ball reading is dismissed.
"Anything that resists current/voltage to a spark plug arc gap will cause premature failure of ignition system parts."
Is that a joke? Do you realize that most plug wires have high resistance intentionally? Do you realize that resistor plugs do as well? It's for RFI suppression. As long as the plugs get their required arc-over voltage (much less than the coil can output), it works.
Your post is full of laughably bad info. *All* OEM wires have high resistance to suppress RFI, and OEM plugs are usually "resistor plugs", for the same reason. Coils can output ~45K volts; the arc-over voltage of spark plugs is less than half that. Spark plugs only use the voltage required to arc-over, and no more. Also, the voltage at the plugs *far exceeds* the dialectric strength of a microscopically thin layer of dialectric grease, thus it is adding *no* resistance anyway. Is that clear?
There is no benefit to using "low resistance" plug wires. Again, plugs only use enough voltage to arc-over, and no more. The coil is capable of outputting way more voltage than a spark plug requires, thus there is a lot of room for resistance in the wires and plugs without affecting performance. Let's say "zero resistance" wires allow 45K volts through, and normal wires allow 35K volts through; the plug is only going to use 12-25K volts to arc-over either way; i.e., it makes no difference.
... And you clearly have no idea what dialectric strength is, because if you did, you would know that at sparkplug voltages (at least 12,000 volts), an extremely thin layer of dialectric grease is not dialectric at all, because 12,000+ volts *far* exceeds it dialectric strength of 500 volts/mil.
NEVER put dielectric grease on the conductor or terminal end of any electrical connection. Dielectric grease opposes current flow and makes it harder for voltage to jump the spark gap. Dielectric grease is used on the outer jacket of the wire or the boot of the connection - NEVER EVER ON THE METAL CONNECTION. Maybe this is why Accel products truly dont give you any advantage over stock replacements....
Dielectric grease is non-conductive, obviously (which is what "dielectric" means), but a tight metal-to-metal contact displaces the grease at the point(s) of contact, and conductivity is not affected. Your warning here is based on intuition, not on actual measurements. If you had done real measurements with an ohm meter, you would have found no difference between dry and with dielectric grease, assuming a properly tight-fitting terminal.
You are absolutely dead wrong. The absolute best wire to use on any ignition system is a Granatelli wire. They have 0 ZERO ohms per foot. RFI suppression comes from the insulation around the conductor and wire construction. Granatelli uses a ferrite ring to suppress RFI/EMI issues. Resistance in spark plug wires is BAD. Thats why coil over plug systems are developed. Do yourself a favor and youtube search 'granatelli dominates ignition wire test'. Maybe you'll learn something - but I doubt it..
Too much work
Go ahead and do that to your car..Reply back in 6 months and tell me what failed in your ignition system..Or, if you race, tell me what happened after about 2 or 3 races or so...lol
this is worng, you went wrong. sorry.
thought this was a video on how to "make" your own wires lol
You obviously have no real world experience in this matter. Anything that resists current/voltage to a spark plug arc gap will cause premature failure of ignition system parts. Please base your position on real world results - not perfect world bench tests. Furthermore, bending the conductor back over the insulation and then crimping the terminal on (like in the video) will cause failure also. That causes the 'corona effect' at the crimp, and the wire will fail in time..
Boot goes on first. Come on, it's obvious.