66 Riv Problems after replacing ignition wires

[Guest Bling86]

Hi guys,

I think this is my second post. Okey, i have replaced the stock 7mm black wires with the yellow ACCEL 8.8mm spiral wire set from SummitRacing. After putting everything in place and firing the engine i noticed a rough idle and the fuel smell was filling the place, the engine felt like it was skipping a beat judging from the sound from the exhaust end. On road the car barely had half the power it had and was struggling to accelerate. I went on to check by means of trial and error disconnecting each wire while the engine was running, they all seemed to be connected properly. On the cap, all wires were connected on the right firing order sequence. Thats as far as my technical knowledge goes.

I still have those old wires, but I'm not really willing to let go of these. What could be causing this problem? do i need to upgrade any of the ignition system components to make this work correctly? your inputs are highly appreciated!..

'66 Riviera, 425cu.

Edited April 2, 2013 by Bling86 (see edit history)

[60FlatTop]

Be sure you didn't pull off a vacuum line first.

Those old wires are probably curved and shaped pretty close to the old routes they took from the distributor to each plug. Just kind of lay each one in place against the newly installed one and see if a light goes on between the ears.

If nothing obvious pops up, check each new wire for continuity. You never know.

Good so far?

Take off the distributor cap and the valve cover over number 1 cylinder. Rotate the engine in the proper direction until you see the intake valve close and the exhaust valve is closed at the same time. Go through a full revolution so you can watch the timing mark come up. Now check that the rotor is just a hair before the #1 terminal. Snap the cap back down and put the wires in following the correct rotation. Adjust as needed.

If you do anything that requires removing the distributor remember my rule, about 25 years ago I made it a policy never to remove a distributor unless I turned the engine so the rotor was exactly positioned 90 degrees to the firewall. That has saved a lot of memory, chalk marks, and unneeded BS.

Bernie

[Don McClair]

When you replaced the wires, did you pull them all off and then install the new wires? It is very easy to get the placement of the wires one position off on the distributor cap. Check the wire going to the front spark plug on the passenger side and make sure it is going to the position on the distributor cap that is the first one clockwise above the point adjustment window on the cap. This is number one. Thru 1966 Buick engines had the number one plug on the passenger side of the engine. One position off could make an engine run really bad if it would run at all.

[petelempert]

I've heard that some high performance wires have limited insulation qualities and can actually mess with some electrical systems...typically messing with radios etc. Just to try it, you could put the old wires back on and see. Worth trying. Carefully remove and replace one at a time. That said, from what you described, I tend to think from the sound of things, you've got your wires crossed. PRL

[NTX5467]

I fully understand "the lure" of Accel wires which you have to build yourself, but you could have gotten the same conductor in Borg-Warner CoolWire wiresets, which come already "made-up" for less money. Be that as it may . . .

The "spiral" conductor wires are of lower resistance/foot than other types of RFI-suppression wires. My experience has been that some ignition "static" can be heard on the radio (especially AM) with the hood up, but will go away when the hood is lowered (and better-shielding any RFI which there might be, from the antenna).

One time a good while back, I was at a friend's filling station. He had a '78 Chrysler Newport which "the owner's grandson" had put new ignition wires on and it would not get out of its own way, off idle. I knew that even with the LeanBurn system and a ThermoQuad 4bbl, it shouldn't be that way. I took it around a couple of blocks and it ran "as described" . . . NO power off idle, even at WOT . . . until it got to a certain rpm and then it took off like a jet airplane, consistently. Idled decent, though. As it turned out, the grandson had crossed #5 and #7 spark plug wires . . . which fire in that order. When those two plug wires were switched, it smoked the back tires, like it should.

Another story . . . When I got my '80 Newport (used), I first checked the plugs to see what they were and how they were "patterned" and "colored". They looked fine. I noticed the plug wires were "stock", so I planned to do my normal upgrade to the B-W CoolWireII wires. That went well. A while later, it seemed to develop an intermittent "limp-in mode" situation, which I tried to track to no avail, as to discovering what was triggering the limp-in mode in the first place. I checked every ignition system ground and related ground terminal under the hood . . . no change.

One day, I was sitting in the drive-thru at a McDonalds after visiting the Chrysler dealership for some parts. As I was sitting there, I noticed the idle got a little MORE quivver in it. As soon as I added a little throttle to move forward, I KNEW it had gone into limp-in mode while I was sitting there. So, not wanting to be stranded and such, I did not dare turn it off! I ate the hamburger and then headed back toward my shadetree shop, across town. It acted like it was running on 1/2 of its cylinders. It would barely make 40mph on the freeway overpasses, in 2nd gear (with the flashers on!). I could dang near watch the gas gauge DROP as I drove it, which was highly uncharacteristic. When I got to the shop, I left it running as I unlocked the building and parked it inside. Once safely there, I killed the engine and then restarted it . . . IF I'd been thinking, I would have realized that if I'd killed and restarted the engine, it would have "cleared the code" and everything would have been fine again . . . as it was as I did that after getting to the shop. After those "light bulbs" finally came on in my brain, I was not afraid to drive it. THEN, about a month later, I was checking the spark plugs and when I gently pulled the #1 cylinder's plug wire boot off, it came off waaayyy too easily . . . the terminal had pulled off of the wire, staying on the spark plug end. Further examination revealed that it had been barely secured to the wire all of that time. For some reason, perhaps a stray vibration or something, it would "not connect" and send a voltage spike back through the system, triggering the limp-in mode in the computer. I gently pulled the plug boot back down the wire's length, securely reattached the terminal to it, and then carefully repositioned the plug boot over it again. END OF PROBLEM!

I realize that your car is sans-computer, but some of the same issues might be affecting things.

Over the years I've been doing things to cars . . . there have been some things which everybody else does day in, day out, with NO problems . . . but when I tried them, there were issues which I had to figure out and fix. Like the time I upgraded the 4bbl intake manifold on my '67 Chrysler . . . when everything was back on, the front bolt on the lh side would not seemingly line up in the hole and tighten down. I checked and rechecked, as it was the bolt originally from that praticular hole. I swapped bolts and the other one worked, but that one would not. So I got a new bolt of the same specs and it fell right in and tightened down the first time! That was when I figured out that for each "flat rate hour" that a particular repair was supposed to take, for me, it would be "1 night after work/stated flat rate hour". Later, I was able to improve on that situation! So don't feel like you're the only person who's ever done something "simple" and it didn't work out "right"!

Please let us know what you found!

Take care,

NTX5467

Edited April 7, 2013 by NTX5467 (see edit history)

[Guest Bling86]

First of all, guys am reaaally sorry for the late reply I was out of town for work, and thanks for all of you who put the time to reply back, I appreciate that.</SPAN>

Coming back to business, BEFORE everything when I initially replaced the wires I have taken a look at some diagrams that show the firing pattern and how the wires were placed on the cap. I went on and fitted the wires as per the diagram with the firing order 1-2-7-8-4-5-6-3(from what I remember because am away from the car), anyways that order is embossed on the valve covers, so no issues on that part. Then I had the problems that I mentioned.</SPAN>

What I am glad I did is taking some pictures of the cap and wires position on it as well as the engine from both sides before the change which when looked at again I found that I actually I skipped one post (so basically I put #1 were #2 should be and so forth). Now here is where an awkward situation came in place, looking at the cap from above it looks a bit rotated anti-clockwise unlike what I have seen in those diagrams which seemed very reliable. So were it shows #1 post in the diagram is actually #2 in my case!! The cap is actually tightened and I never tampered with it, the car drives normally now. Is this normal???</SPAN>

Bernie your suggestion of adjusting the rotor I would leave it as a last resort since it’s a nightmare to reach for #1 plug in the first place ( I have a custom A/c system with a custom mount which makes things even worse), but well if it has to be done it has to be done! </SPAN></SPAN></SPAN>

Another thing I noticed is when I stop on traffic lights the car pulls heavy when accelerating with a bogie sound as if the engine is flooded with fuel but gets back to its normal state after that, is that normal or not?</SPAN>

Sorry guys, my first classic, in the middle east, lack of professional mechanics in general, Arabic is my mother language.. so you know the drill lol. Hope I made sense from what I wrote thanks for everyone’s input again.</SPAN>

Edited April 7, 2013 by Bling86 (see edit history)