Plug Wires

[Adverse2Change]

At what point did Ford start going with the plug wires that are apart of a larger wiring harness? I first noticed it on my '06 Focus, and again on my '09 GT. Is this style better than a more traditional type of plug wire setup? How exactly would you go about changing the wires... or can you even?

 

[klaw]

Our cars have a coil on each plug whereas a conventional old-style iginition had one coil and distributed the high voltage through high voltage plug wires. You don't need to change the plug wires in our setup but on occasion you might have to replace a coil (referred to as a "COP" - "Coil-On-Plug"). With our setup the high voltage side of the coil is connected directly to the spark plug.

 

[DarkFireGT]

Right. Plug wires were changed in the past to put on lower resistance wires (either by thicker wire or more conductive material), so that the power between the coil and the sparkplug was not lost. Since we have coil-on-plugs, that's not necessary. All the action takes place right there.

 

[Adverse2Change]

Awesome, thanks for the replies.

 

[The Fang]

This is something I recently noticed, I have a v6 4.0 and they are not COP design.

 

[kooldawg6]

So what actual/noticeable gain will we get by switching out the OEM COP for an aftermarket COP??? They're several hundred $$$

 

[DarkFireGT]

So what actual/noticeable gain will we get by switching out the OEM COP for an aftermarket COP??? They're several hundred $$$

There's only a couple options available. GMS makes one, which I avoid them like the plague. I think MSD makes one too. From what I've seen, NA it doesn't do squat. The COP design is pretty efficient. If you were boosted, you might see a minor increase. Just like throttle bodies, pretty much, as I've also seen problems with the COPs.

 

[kooldawg6]

Thanks, Dark After seeing this thread I quickly checked Summit racing and saw that they have their own COP as well as Accel, MSD and GMS. No great description on actual gains and now that is money I don't have to worry about wanting to spend/waste