Today I was planning a nice, relaxing time with my fiance at a theme
park in the area. Well, after the 90-mile drive there, I pull up to
the place you pay to park, and the motor starts idling REALLY bad.
So, I drop it out of drive into neutral thinking that maybe the
tranny is pulling the motor down, and it doesn't help it any. So, I
park it as quick as I can, pop the hood, and BOOM, I am met by a
foot-high flame coming from the back of the motor. To say the least,
the day just got REALLY interesting. I blew it out real quick and
tried to figure out what happened. Apparently the coil wire (I've
got 8mm heli-cores that are only about 6 months old) burnt in two at
the connection where the wire is crimped to the connector which fits
onto the distributor cap. It also took out 3 other wires, one of
which was almost burnt in two, singed my brand new Accel cap, and
took out two vacuum hoses which are behind the intake and in front of
the dist cap. It took me about 2 hours to get to an auto parts
store, get the new cap, rotor, and wires, and vacuum hose I needed
(out $50 for it all), and install the new stuff to get it moveable
again. The wire set I got I had problems with earlier but didn't
take them back. Ya know how they're guaranteed not to pull-off from
the spark plug conector for 5 years? The first time I pulled the
things off to gap the plugs 2 of them pulled off, and neither one of
these had any conductive material touching the metal connector. They
both had scorch marks on the connector where they'd been arcing.
However, I didn't take them back to get a new set. I fixed them
myself. So, today I found out I had a third wire which wasn't making
good contact at the connector and it just about took my truck out.
Imagine what could have happened if that nice little fire would have
gotten close to an injector. . .burns through plastic on injector. .
.hits fuel pressurized to about 50 psi. . .Barbecued Bob Cobb, that's
what could have happened. I've written MSD reporting the problem and
asking for a replacement set of wires along with the cash I spent for
stuff I shouldn't have needed today. Anybody else had any problems
like this? I firmly believe I just got a dud set. Maybe they were
manufactured by some guy who'd had a BAD Sunday night or something.
I don't know. Anyway, you guys you are running MSD wires part number
#3119 (I think that's the part number for the cut-to-fit set I
bought) may want to check your wires occasionally to see if you've
got any problems. I had to run the truck back to school on the stock
coil, so for you guys contemplating hooking up an MSD unit, I would
HIGHLY recommend leaving the stock coil in and NOT cutting the wires
to the stock coil connector to use for the MSD. Just get some 12
guage wire and shove in the connector's holes and then hook it up.
- Rob Cobb 93 V0 LE 2wd swb auto
s0042745@cedarville.edu
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