Ignition Leads

[pereirac]

Hi,
Can anybody please tell me how long the ignition leads on an Elan shoud be (dizzy to plugs and dizzy to coil). I have really long leads at the moment which go down one side of the engine towards the gearbox/bulkhead and then pass through the little 'hole' under the cam cover between the cams. I would guess that shorter leads which come through the inlet manifold straight to the plugs would be better?
Any thoughts on lead manufacturer welcome.
Thanks

Carl

[john.p.clegg]

Carl

I wouldn't bother measuring them,just feed them through the middle opening in the inlet manifold and re-terminate them on the plug caps,or easier(or more difficult depending how you look at it) is to reconnect them on the dissy cap,if you have the screw type connectors.

John

[Frank Howard]

:huh: Carl

I don't think it makes any difference if the wires are an extra foot or two long because they are routed through the back of the head. As a matter of fact, it makes for a cleaner installation leaving them that way. Can't do this if you have a TC Europa. Alternator pulley is in the way. And if you want an even cleaner installation, fabricate a radio noise supressor out of aluminum and install it over the valley.

Frank Howard
'71 Elan S4 SE
'74 Europa Special
Minnesota

[pereirac]

Thanks for all your comments.

I do have a noise supressor panel which I did make out of aluminum so I might as well leave things as they are.

The leads are 10 years old but I suppose there is no reason to change them if everything works.

Thanks again

Carl

[cliveyboy]

When I bought my Sprint it came with solid copper ignition leads which ran behind the engine and had the two aluminium radio suppression covers fitted.
The solid copper leads made so much electrical noise that my mates engine analyser had problems.
I changed over to Magnecor leads and ran them over the cam cover. Only for the reason that every time you want to check the plugs you do not need to remove the aluminium cover.
Magnecor can make up a set of leads to run around the back of the engine if you give them the dimensions.
There is a picture of the leads on the engine on my website under the "Samco and K&N section"
<a href='http://groups.msn.com/cliveyboylotus' target='_blank'>http://groups.msn.com/cliveyboylotus</a>

Clive

[elancoupe]

The Magnecor leads are by far the best I have used in the 25 years I have had my car. Reasonable pricing, too.

They even eliminated most of the dreaded tacho bounce.

[type26owner]

Back in the day the aluminum covers were used to keep the stone pebbles from off the racetrack from showering down into the recessed pockets the spark plugs are located in. Without a cover or grommet it was common to have lots of pebbles lodged in there so tightly it took hours to pry them all loose so the plugs could be removed with a plug socket. The cover was a real pain to take on and off to replace the fuel fouled spark plugs and that was frequently necessary because the twincam was renowned for being hard to start with the crummy Lucas starter. We and so did all the other local racers in the late sixties stopped using the cover when it became common knowledge the rubber spark plug grommet that VW used on the air-cooled engines to seal up the aircooling shrouds would slip right over the plugs on the twincam like a hand into a glove and kept the pebbles at bay. It's sad the grommets you can get nowadays from the VW vendors are so thin and frail they droop down into the pockets so they are very hard to remove themselves. :angry:

Those same damn pebbles used to get inhaled into the induction system. They're not a good addition to the combustion chamber at all.
-Keith
p.s. Lots of voodoo with this stuff. Specialty coil and spark plug vendors try to dazzle you with common knowledge crud for the true believers which does not deliver any added performance for the extra cost.