MSD Superconductor wires

DTOMKIDD · February 8, 2018

As I'm waiting for my engine to cool down to replace my spark plugs I decided to compare the resistance of our stock wires compared to the MSD Superconductor wires and here's the results:

Stock wires are around 2,000 ohms and MSD wires are around 60 ohms.

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DTOMKIDD · February 8, 2018

I'll get pictures of them installed once I'm all done, I thought people might find this interesting.

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Grumpy Bear · February 8, 2018

One word for ya. Magnecore!

Pearl2017 · February 8, 2018

low resistance wires will do absolutely nothing for you and here is why. If you take that same meter and measure the resistance across the spark plug you will find a resistance of infinity. if you look at the wire as being in a Series circuit with the spark plug you can calculate the voltage drop across the wire. If you do this you will find that either resistance of 2 Ohm or .06 Ohm are both so infinitesimally small compared to the open air gap resistance of the spark plug that voltage drop in the wire is insignificant in either case. A good wire is one that has a reliable connection in the under-hood environment and minimal emf emissions.

As an outrageous example say the plug has resistance of 1 Gig-ohm and the wire is 2 Ohm. The voltage across each component can be seen as a ratio like this...

1,000,000,000 : 2

So if we had a completely unrealistic firing voltage of 1 Gigavolts the plug would drop 999,999,998 volts and the wire would drop 2 volts. Cutting the resistance of the wire in half would only be 1 volt difference.

If a more realistic firing voltage 100,000 volts is used the wire would drop something like .002 volts.

Boutique wires are for making things look nice nothing more. And sometimes create problems where none existed.

DTOMKIDD · February 8, 2018

low resistance wires will do absolutely nothing for you and here is why. If you take that same meter and measure the resistance across the spark plug you will find a resistance of infinity. if you look at the wire as being in a Series circuit with the spark plug you can calculate the voltage drop across the wire. If you do this you will find that either resistance of 2 Ohm or .06 Ohm are both so infinitesimally small compared to the open air gap resistance of the spark plug that voltage drop in the wire is insignificant in either case. A good wire is one that has a reliable connection in the under-hood environment and minimal emf emissions.

As an outrageous example say the plug has resistance of 1 Gig-ohm and the wire is 2 Ohm. The voltage across each component can be seen as a ratio like this...

1,000,000,000 : 2

So if we had a completely unrealistic firing voltage of 1 Gigavolts the plug would drop 999,999,998 volts and the wire would drop 2 volts. Cutting the resistance of the wire in half would only be 1 volt difference.

If a more realistic firing voltage 100,000 volts is used the wire would drop something like .002 volts.

Boutique wires are for making things look nice nothing more. And sometimes create problems where none existed.

Thanks for the tangent. I never claimed these wires were a performance upgrade or had any kind of benefit. I bought these wires because of how well they are built and because they're "boutique" as you put it. I think they look good. I've seen other posts where people wondered about the resistance difference between stock and aftermarket wires so I was showing my personal findings.

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joshc64311 · February 8, 2018

Mine runs smoother with them, nice truck

DTOMKIDD · February 8, 2018

Mine runs smoother with them, nice truck

I immediately noticed mine runs smoother also and thanks!

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Paintor · February 8, 2018

Ohms law. Amps is equal to voltage divivded by resistance ohms.

48,000 volt coil pack divided by 2,000 ohms resistance=24 amps

48,000 volt coil pack divided by 60 ohms resistance=800 amps

Now the coil pack is not going to deliver 800 amps.....just more of its amps/miliamps will equal a bigger flash at the plug than higher resistance wires.

For that bigger flash we need to know actual voltage squared divided by ohm resistance:

48,000 volts squared divided by 2,000 ohms=1,152,000 watts

48,000 volts squared divided by 60 ohms=3,840,000 watts

math says lower resistance wires ROCK....bigger flash.

60ohm wires will allow over DOUBLE of the watts to be converted to spark.....than factory 2,000 ohm wires.

Edited February 8, 2018 by Paintor

Grumpy Bear · February 8, 2018

It only takes a few millijoules of "power" to light a hole at peak cylinder pressures. No cylinder fires 100% of it's ignition cycles but it takes about 15% failure rate for the human senses to register them. Early Kettering systems were just under that when in a good state of tune and of course just over it when not. "miss". Move forward about five decades and it takes a computer, your PCM, to measure a miss and toss a code somewhere @ 1% non fire events. Your not going to improve the factory ignitions functionality with a 'different' wire, or plug. Once the hole lights it doesn't matter if it was a subtle static spark or a Tesla moment event that initiated it. Boom is Boom.

If you can 'sense' an improvement then there was something amiss to begin with (pun intended) and direct replacement would have produced the same result. There are two reasonable reasons to replace with something non OEM.

1.) You just like the look and it doesn't compromise the ignition event.

2.) You are non stock, headers, turbo etc. and/or stand alone non OEM PCM that would benefit from:

a.) additional heat/chemical shielding provided by larger silicon/ceramic jacketing and booting

b.) additional EMF shielding.

DTOMKIDD · February 8, 2018

It only takes a few millijoules of "power" to light a hole at peak cylinder pressures. No cylinder fires 100% of it's ignition cycles but it takes about 15% failure rate for the human senses to register them. Early Kettering systems were just under that when in a good state of tune and of course just over it when not. "miss". Move forward about five decades and it takes a computer, your PCM, to measure a miss and toss a code somewhere @ 1% non fire events. Your not going to improve the factory ignitions functionality with a 'different' wire, or plug. Once the hole lights it doesn't matter if it was a subtle static spark or a Tesla moment event that initiated it. Boom is Boom.

If you can 'sense' an improvement then there was something amiss to begin with (pun intended) and direct replacement would have produced the same result. There are two reasonable reasons to replace with something non OEM.

1.) You just like the look and it doesn't compromise the ignition event.
2.) You are non stock, headers, turbo etc. and/or stand alone non OEM PCM that would benefit from:
a.) additional heat/chemical shielding provided by larger silicon/ceramic jacketing and booting
b.) additional EMF shielding.

As I stated before I bought these wires because I like the way they look and they're only $20 more than stock wires. I'll spend twenty extra bucks for the looks and a more stout build quality that I know will last longer. As for the truck idling smoother I never said it was solely because of these wires, just something I noticed right away after the wire and spark plug change so it could have been one of the two or a combination of both.

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joshc64311 · February 8, 2018

Wow, bunch of haters.

DTOMKIDD · February 8, 2018

Wow, bunch of haters.

I know. Even after I stated they were primarily for looks the "experts" still roll in and tell me there's no benefit to them lol.

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Ozer · February 8, 2018

Just to let you know, you will see no HP gain... JK

nice, i will be looking at mine this spring, im at 102k now and it may be time

HoosierZ · February 8, 2018

I have those wires on my ‘16 5.3L. I only changed them because I had them from my previous ‘08. The ‘08 had electrical noise coming thru the radio with the stock wires around 90k mi. It went away completely with the MSDs.

FYI: Mine are the wire set for a LS1 Camaro/ Corvette and they fit perfect.