burning plug wires

[RonnieW]

2142021421I'm not sure my problem can be tied to tuning but I'm at a loss. I continually burn plug wires up. After the run in the attached long, I had 4 plug wires smoking. Two of them were actually flaming. To start with, I wrapped the headers and used sleeves. That didn't help. Then I pulled the headers and turbo's and had them ceramic coated and then wrapped them again, used sleeves, rolled up header wrap and stuffed it between the wires and headers. Still no help. I played with the timing and was able to get the idle EGTs from 1050ish down to mid 900s. I have one EGT probe in one header on each side about 1.5" from the heads. On the run logged above, the EGTs cruising were in the 1300s max and were mid 1500s max while in boost. Any ideas on this will be greatly appreciated.

[estringer]

Are you running lean? If not it may just be the nature of the beast. I don't have the experience to gauge your egt however my n/a lsx burns wires quite rapidly. My fix was to build my own wires using lt1 optispark end ( fits on LS1 coil connection) and use dei protecto sleeve all the way down to the spark plug boot/wire connection, then dei protecto boots over the boot overlapping the sleeve on the wire. About a foot of sleeve , shrink wrapped with the included high temp shrink wrap to hold it in place, and the boot makes for a clean (and trick) looking install that solved this problem for me. Best of luck!

[estringer]

Also be sure you use genuine dei titanium... It's expensive but the china clones are nothing more than a standard fiberglass unit and only offer 1/2-2/3 the protection in my experience. Ive used both in the past and initially just went with the fiberglass boots on this engine and it melted the wire clean off the boot through the fiberglass sleeve. Doing what I outlined above puts two overlapping layers over the place on the wire that sits close to the headers. dei titanium is rated for 2000 degrees iirc. Lastly, granatelli wires held up to heat better than Taylor/msd (tried both)

[RonnieW]

Are you running lean? If not it may just be the nature of the beast. I don't have the experience to gauge your egt however my n/a lsx burns wires quite rapidly. My fix was to build my own wires using lt1 optispark ends(fits on lt1 coil connection) and use dei protecto sleeve all the way down to the spark plug boot/wire connection, then dei protecto boots over the boot overlapping the sleeve on the wire. About a foot of sleeve , shrink wrapped with the included high temp shrink wrap to hold it in place, and the boot makes for a clean (and trick) looking install that solved this problem for me. Best of luck!

Thanks for the reply. Did you buy LT1 plug wires that you had to put the ends on and cut the wires to length?

[estringer]

I just bought the lt1 coil ends and used a universal set of wires that I could cut to length. Amazon has the lt1 ends, universal wires(Taylor for sure, maybe others), and dei products all on prime. I put my set together for about 200$. I'll go outside and snap a photo here in a moment.

[estringer]

21422

Last resort thought as well... Ceramic long boot plug wires are also available from accel

[RonnieW]

21422

Last resort thought as well... Ceramic long boot plug wires are also available from accel

Thanks for taking the time!

[joecar]

Running a bit lean will heat up combustion chamber temperatures.

Running overly rich and/or retarding spark timing will cause the fuel to keep burning after it exits the combustion chamber, i.e. it will continue to burn in the headers, this increases the temperature in and around the headers (and will make catalytic converter glow red hot).

What fuel are you using...?

[RonnieW]

Running a bit lean will heat up combustion chamber temperatures.

Running overly rich and/or retarding spark timing will cause the fuel to keep burning after it exits the combustion chamber, i.e. it will continue to burn in the headers, this increases the temperature in and around the headers (and will make catalytic converter glow red hot).

What fuel are you using...?

93 octane, no cats, look at the tune I attached to see if you think it is too lean or fat. What about the EGTs?

[wesam]

Please stop WOT with this tune
your PE tables should be redone
your VE and boost VE table need a lot of work
You are commanding 12.7 AFR with 17psi boosted car wich is very dangerous (should be around 11.4 )
start with B3618 set it to 11.4

[RonnieW]

Please stop WOT with this tune
your PE tables should be redone
your VE and boost VE table need a lot of work
You are commanding 12.7 AFR with 17psi boosted car wich is very dangerous (should be around 11.4 )
start with B3618 set it to 11.4

I've already made VE adjustments to get the AFR to 11.3. I am in the process of tuning WOT so any suggestion are welcome. The Main VE is also a work in progress. What else should be done to the PE tables?

[joecar]

I agree with Wesam, I just nowgot home and looked at your tune file and I was a little shocked, PE is set to EQR 1.00 and OLFA is set to EQR 1.13 (AFR 12.95)...

for boost you want fueling (PE and OLFA) to be as rich as EQR 1.28 (AFR 11.4) as Wesam said.

Some of us do this: we use OLFA for un-boosted EQR (ramp up to EQR 1.18 in upper columns), and use PE for boost (EQR 1.28) by setting B3613 to 105 kPa.


As Wesam said, VE needs alot of work (it currently specifies less air than stock!!), you should start with stock and add 20% maybe more; and edit the Boost VE table to continue upward.

[RonnieW]

I agree with Wesam, I just nowgot home and looked at your tune file and I was a little shocked, PE is set to EQR 1.00 and OLFA is set to EQR 1.13 (AFR 12.95)...

for boost you want fueling (PE and OLFA) to be as rich as EQR 1.28 (AFR 11.4) as Wesam said.

Some of us do this: we use OLFA for un-boosted EQR (ramp up to EQR 1.18 in upper columns), and use PE for boost (EQR 1.28) by setting B3613 to 105 kPa.


As Wesam said, VE needs alot of work (it currently specifies less air than stock!!), you should start with stock and add 20% maybe more; and edit the Boost VE table to continue upward.

My VE and IFR have been scaled back to keep from going into REP

[Gordy M]

When I had problems with the wires burning with my headers I used a role of 1" header insulation and wrapped them several layers and then put the socks over them. I had 3 cylinders (3,5,7) that would fry the wires. 60,000 miles later and now problems. I also keep 2 additional wrapped and socked plug wires in my glove box but have not had to use them.

[joecar]

My VE and IFR have been scaled back to keep from going into REPAh, ok... but it still needs some work.