Unless you have alot of underhood heat. I melt down cheap wires in my vintage race car. Header heat will melt the ends right off... The silicon is a cheaper grade...

 

Yeah but our trucks don't get that hot under the hood.

 

Ahhh,Josh..VERY impressive! (OB-one has taught you well)

If ya want to get technical,take a dvom to the parts house and buy the ones with least resistance...

 

Isn't it true that larger wires have less resstence? That is why they use 4 guage wire for battery connections instead of 6 guage or or smaller right? I know the smaller wires get hot much easier, and the hotter they get the more resistence.

 

For my tune ups Ive been using Bosch Irridium plugs and wires because they meet the OEM specs perfectly and Ive never ran into a problem with them. Ive used a cheap set of wires for about 20k miles and just noticed a little different idle persa 100rpms lower than usual but nothing horrible except for when I removed them, 2 out of the 8 broke on top of the spark plug. I also stand behind good additives that promote healthy maintanence such as the posi-x for limited slip rear ends, Lucas stop slip for the tranny, and Lucas heavy duty oil stablizer/additive. Ive racked up almost 167k miles on my 99 4.8 and the only thing Ive had to replace was the rear spider gears because my dad drove the truck worse than me... He lived by the whole drive it like you stole it on a day to day basis. XD

 

well,we're getting deep now...

rule #1...resistance goes up,current goes down....

The wire size has to be in relation to the current which it must carry.
A starter needs 200 amps..so it takes a big cable to carry 200 amps.
A glove box lite needs .04 of an amp...

now..the resistance...take 2 new plug wires...1 about 4 inches longer....the longer one has more resistance.Therefore,you want as thin and as short awire you can get that still carries the load efficiently....Now,I know ya'll get tired of my preaching factory...but a lot of study has gone into finding the wire that is the right length,right diameter,and heat resistant for that engine.

back to class...resistance is measured in ohms,.,..less ohms,the better usually.Resistance goes up,ampsgo down.

Its like a water faucet...fully open (least resistant),you get the most flow of water...but as you add resistance (shutting valve),the flow (amps) goes down.

As for plug wires,battery cables....what happens is resistance gets added thru corrosion,rust,loose connections,etc,and the current drops to an un-useable amount.

We also use resistance for control...like blower speeds....we send the full amount of current to the blowe case on low as we do on high...but we run the current thru different sized resistors....the fattest resistor slows the current down the most,creating blower speed #1