Plz Help, arcing through wire to header

[ronstang94]

02 Ranger 3.0l v6 auto

I know.. not a stang, but the ranger station boys are slow to reply and haven't had a clue what the prob is so far, and the 94 - 95 guys here are basically awsome!!!

Im on my fourth set of spark plug wires!

3 Autozone Duracrap
1 Ford Motorsport

First, my truck started to run rough and misfire. It quickly got worse. Opened the hood at night and saw all of the little blue arcs. The wires were old so i just replaced the spark plug wires. Two weeks later started to misfire again. I saw lightning jumping through the #5 plug boot to the header. View attachment 161068 This time I replaced all of the spark plugs and plug wires. The last ones started to do the same. It looked like the #5 was the main problem again.Well, I ordered some new Ford Motorsport spark plug wires off of amazon. They seemed like they were made of a lot denser material. Installed them and been driving on them for a little while. Thought the problem was solved until today. The spark is jumping through the #5 spark plug wire boot to the header again View attachment 161069 I don't know how the path of least resistance could possibly be jumping through silicone and air to get to the header.
Yes, the spark plug gap is correct
Yes, the wire was connected to the plug correctly

Is there a possible reason/problem with the engine causing this to keep happening? Any ideas of what is going wrong?

Thank you

 

[toyman]

I would guess that the wire has touched the header and has been damaged. Check the routing and make certain there is adequate clearance. If that looks okay I would buy some thermal protection sleeves to provide extra heat and/or contact protection for the wires.

http://www.summitracing.com/search/...k-Plug-Wire-Heat-Shield-Sleeves/?autoview=SKU

 

[revhead347]

I hate to say it, but the only cause of that is poor wire quality. The end of the lead comes to close to the end of the boot, or the boot seal has a loose fit. Motorsport wires are notorious for having this problem. I don't know much about the Duraspark wires. The easiest solution is to buy a better set of quality wires. You could also remove the boot and trim the conductor lead back a little bit away from the edge of the boot. Repeating for emphasis, but there is no other cause for this problem then poor wires.

Kurt

 

[Bosko5.0]

I had one ford racing wire shorting, I couldn't tell till I grabbed the top of the distributor. The center wire got stuck on the end of the boot when the wires were put together. I shortened the wires and fixed the problem.

Do you have 115* plugs or straight plug wire? You could try puting some fiberglass pad between the plug wires and headers.

 

[ronstang94]

Well I think I fixed the problem. Thank you all for your input and suggestions View attachment 160776 I thought about the negative effects that extreme heat can have on wires. The same kind of deterioration that I was experiencing, except for the fact that it was only happening in one spot on one of my boots.. so I checked for an exhaust leak and there was in fact a concentrated blast of fire being blown on the boot!

1 new exhaust gasket
1 new bolt
1 new boot

Problem solved!

Thanks again

 

[toyman]

Wasn't the exhaust leak creating a ticking sound? They are usually quite audible. Good to hear that the problem was resolved.