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Aftermarket vs. OEM Spark Plug Wires One of the most hotly debated topics in tuning Hondas is the perceived benefits of aftermarket spark-plug cables. These are often marketed with the promise of 'better' and 'more powerful' sparks and thus directly inferring better combustion and a gain in power output. Armchair 'tuning specialists', enthusiasts, and even mechanics alike have discussed about the supposed mediocre sparking qualities of the stock Honda spark-plug cables and, especially at high RPMs typical when revving VTEC Hondas, how the stock cables will be struggling to produce good consistent sparks. Aftermarket cables comes into the picture claiming to produce better, 'larger' and more consistent sparks at high RPMs and therefore higher power output. How true are these claims ? To clear the mystery and resolve this debate once and for all, TOVA requested Dynojet Far East to perform a spark-plug cables dyno test. The car used is a JDM Honda Integra XSi with the B16A engine. The stock plug cable has been in use for the better part of 8 years. At this age, many will begin recommending their replacement by aftermarket cables, often citing that they will be worn out and thus not giving good sparks. The car has been regularly serviced (either 5000km or 3 months whichever expires first) using original Honda oil filter and Mobil-1 synthetic engine oil. At the time of the test, all maintenance items are new; spark plugs, HKS Super-Power-Flow filter element, even gear oil (using Honda recommended oil). The fuel injectors have also been cleaned less than 4 months ago. The car has also just benefited from the fitament of brand new HKS Legal Muffler and HKS Super-Header, with a HKS AFR to re-calibrate the air-fuel ratio to our local atmospheric conditions. Aftermarket cable number 1 represents the generic 8mm silicon 'high performance' replacement cables. Often these cables are marketed by performing a side-by-side comparison on a special setup where first the stock cable are used to connect a spark-plug to an ignition coil. The sparks produced at the plug will be seen to be weak and dull. Next, replacement of the 8mm silicon cable will be done and now the sparks at the plug can clearly be seen to be bright and strong. From this 'conclusive' demonstration, the benefits to power output will be inferred. I will not be embarrassed to admit that I myself have bought three sets of such cables in my earlier Honda ownership days (when I was driving SOHC engine models), often being conclusively convinced by the demonstration and then actually believing that I felt improvements from the cables. I have owned this cable for about 5 years, using them on and off. Aftermarket cable number 2 is the famous NGK 'blue' cable, ie NGK Hyper Silicon. Having the same diameter as stock cables (and thus the added advantage of direct replacement), the NGK is a cable that even HKS has recommended over stock. The logic given was often that the NGK will last longer than stock as well as the typical giving 'better' spark benefits. In fact, the box that the NGK comes in has a claim of 130% better sparks - hence more power from the engine. The NGK cables are brand new, and supplied by Dynojet Far East to help settle the debate. The dyno runs were performed immediately one after the other, with only the minimum of delay necessitated by having to switch off the engine to replace the plug cables. To get straight to the point, the three dyno runs are produced below. The power curves are: green is for the stock cable, red for the generic 8mm silicon, and blue for the NGK blue cable. The actual power outputs are not crucial and have been removed from the charts to make the comparison more straightforward. The most important point from the charts is that the stock spark-plug cables produced the highest and most consistent power curve. The most significant factor is the smoothness of the stock cable's power curve. Both the 'generic' 8mm silicon cable and the NGK were seen to be misfiring as evidenced by their jagged curves after 5000rpm and especially in the VTEC rpm band. Both 8mm silicon and NGK delivered about the same max power which is about 1ps lower than that produced by the stock cables. Note that the stock cables, although 8 years old, consistently produced better power all across the dynoed rpm band, 3000rpm till the 8000rpm red-line. Especially surprising is the fact that the stock cables did not misfire, thus proving that they produce more consistent sparks even compared to the brand new and supposedly superior NGK blue cables ! The results although probably shocking to many enthusiasts are in fact what have often been recommended by the best tuners. Many enthusiasts naturally are reluctant to accept the fact, no matter how highly they respect those tuners but with this comparison, TOVA hopes that the question have been conclusively answered and the debates are now closed. Stock spark-plug cables are the best ! Copyright Wong KN Temple of VTEC Asia Feb 01 1999.

any to recommend? stumble across this on the web "hyper ground system - universal wires" any idea if its available in spore? where can i buy? thanks

Hi all, 1. Wanted to find out if the existing wires have Earth, Live and Netural but the fan only has Live and Netural with an Earth that has an end that wired to a rod, do I connect the other loose end to the existing Earth wire? 2. I've installed the fan and it works but don't know what to do with the Earth wires. Kindly advise me. Thank you very much. Regards,

wonder if uninstalling is easy? can i just unplug the wires? will that fry my ecu? or must i retune the car?

hv 1 set of 6 pt grounding kit n 2 batt terminals. wires hv been measured n cut to specified lengths for my ride (proton wira) n ends hv been prepared w lugs already soldered on. looking for help to install as totally unfamiliar w electrical issues. willing to pay token sum. anybody know of ppl dat do diy grounding ie not a shop but an enterprising individual pls giv contacts or reply thru PM. tks

Anyone can renconmend me good speaker brand wire,rca cables or all that needed for car audio. thanks

I've noticed that new Honda car models come with factory fitted copper grounding wires. Both my dad's Oddy and my 1.8FD Civic comes with these groundings. I'd like to know how about other Japanese makes or even Conti makes especially newer models. Cos I noticed some Conti cars dun have any. Looks like the engineers at Honda know their stuff. Compare Japanese makes to Conti makes, the Japanese seems to have better eletrical/electronics reliability.

regarding DIY joining of wires: most installers, when joining, say, 2 speaker wires together, would use "clips" of some sort. i notice the clip contact points are some grey-coloured metal material, not sure what they are. what do you think of this method, as compared to, say: twisting both ends of the wires together, and taping it up i suppose these cheap clips aren't of wonderful material, and twisting copper wires together give the best contact, right? are there inexpensive clips available of higher quality that provides the ease of clipping together with the reliability of material? does anyone DIY power cable connection to battery + terminal? i've got a clip but it's of the wrong size/shape. not sure what would be suitable - apparently my clip, which looks like a loop that can be clamped into the + terminal, is too thick in material, and the hole of the loop is too large. so gotta look for something thinner and smaller .. i suppose sim lim would have such a thing, but not sure if any1 knows the technical name of this piece, or the sizing, so that i could ask specifically for it at simp limp ...

Test the speakers, wires, and polarity all in one step! If you are wiring a car stereo or home stereo and have the wires plugged into the speakers but at the other end do not know which wires go to which port? Rather than trace each wire seperately, grab a 9volt battery, hold one wire on a terminal, tap the other wire on the other terminal, and it will make the speaker pop. Now know which speaker is connected to that wire. Also, if wired correctly +/- the cone will pop OUT; if it sucks in, you have the polarity backwards. Too steps solved in one. You want all of the speakers to pop out with the +/-. This will make your stereo, home or car sound much fuller. If it sounds hollow or lacking bass, you may have just one speaker wired backwards. Eric B, certified car audio installer 9 years in biz

Any comments on this? I'm thinking of installing this on my Aveo Auto Sedan. Any idea where to get it done and how much?

OK I'm considering going into ultra DIY territory here. Been to eBay and seen lots of universal fit ignition (spark plug) wires that are going as low as USD22. These are not your average 7mm ones. They are 8mm spiral wound Kevlar stuff. Just need to know if it is easy to cut and crimp these wires to fit my exisiting setup? Will there be any difficulties for lets say the spark plug boot end of my car is 90 degrees.

Want to find out whether it's necessary to use 4/8AWG for grounding purposes, instead of 12AWG cables? Thank you Keat..

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