328 Spark Plug Extenders---HELP

Robbie -

Per our discussion last night, the extensions are already in the hands of FedEx.

 

They should snap on. The green stuff would indicate poor connections and can cause misfires.

Dave

 

Dan/Mr. Ricambi, do you have the proper 104mm extenders for the 4 valvers? I have found the 100mm extenders suitable for the 2 valvers don't fit very well as they are, obviously, a little too short. Thanks in advance.

 

Cliff -

My photography isn't so good -- but I think you mean 126699 as shown on the top of this photo, eh?

The one on the top (126699) is slightly longer and has somewhat flattened edges near the tip -- giving it an almost triangle shape. If you look closely, you can see the flattened area near the tip (from 1 - 1.5 on the tape measure)

126699 is a 328 extension
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what excactly is the specific need of this part? i check the ohm resistance on mine and found them to be all .001 seems that it would almost be a solid chuck of metal but most likely fitted with a resistor in there. anyone cut one open? beyond that, most all plugs are of the resistor type. and with better technnology on the wires and heat shielding fabrics. why not run the wire down to the plug and forgo the extension? for a part that corrodes and costs an additional $10 a pop why keep useing it? i'll let the electrical engineers field this one, does running a resistor extension to a resistor plug make the ignition system work harder than it needs to?

i'm aware of the owners that want everything as factory made it, but poor runing and unreliability drive me nuts. i'll give up some originality to have a reliable and better running car. but i will admit this thing with the extensions has me confused. not trying to keep anyone from ordering parts from our sponsers and freinds. Dan so far has the fastest shipping i've ever seen with stuff, and great prices to boot.

PS:does any other car use deep wells with extensions molded on the plugwires with a reall nice rubber gromet to keep out debris/water?

 

I just bought some myself from a different supplier (not Ricambi, as I didn't know they had them. I should have!!!.....). And, in talking to my mechanic about them, I feel I maybe shouldn't have, although I will know more tomorrow.

Anyway, they are going to test them for me. They say that they have seen knockoffs of these that are basically garbage in weeks. I guess, with the knockoffs, you can already see burn marks on some in some areas on them in WEEKS. They pulled out a box of good ones and bad ones they kept to show me what can or does happen with different plug entenders. Man, I have AWESOME people taking care of my car. They have impressed the HECK out of me with their knowledge, prices, customer care!!! This is just another example....

Anyway.........

They tested my last ones a few weeks ago, during an oil change, and said I could use some new ones soon. So I bought them on my own thinking I was getting a deal. I MIGHT have. Or I might have useless extenders. We'll see tomorrow. Mine actually look better in quality than the two in the picture above. Mine LOOKS like the one on top and were $10 each. Although, who KNOWS what type of material they have INSIDE of the ones I bought!!??

:-0

 

smg2, yes, one particular car that uses extenders and a boot is a 911. The OEM (Beru) wires and extenders are very high quality and work well - the plug wires even come with a stainless sheath in an attempt to prevent arcing. Don't know if these would work well with a 3X8, however, the length looks like it's in the right range at least.

 

Hi Dan, exactly correct. I think you nailed it, specifically, the 126699 is appropriate for the 328 being a little greater in length. Do you have the 126699's in stock? If yes, can you advise how much $? Thanks.

 

okay i'll probably take some flak for this but here goes:
last night i was tired of trying to track down an intermitant miss, as most have seen the plug extenders become the fault. fed up with the problem i removed tham all and ran the wire directly to the plug. i have the taylor pro-409 wire so they reached and can tolorate 600*F. idle was smooth as butter at that point. so i cut open and extender and found something very interesting...i'll let the pics tell the story. incedently my extenders came with the car from the PO so i have no ideas as to age or originalty. they are marked with a MAFER sig on the side.
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okay, the core is solid yellow brass plated in nickle chrome. thats it, no other construction. so exactly how do these go bad? scotchbrite the ends and you should be back in buisness. some reasearch points out that yellow brass has 35-85 ohms of resitance per mill foot. silver as the std. is 1 ohm. nickle chrome is 42 ohm per foot.

cleaning the ends didn't really help. turns out the OEM spark plugs are non-resistive and the current available replacement is resistive. possible problem? reading the ohm resistance of piece individually didn't produce any outof range results, however connecting the plug to the extender than reading the resistance netted a large value of 35k ohms.

still not sure what exactly is going on here but i do know that i will never be replacing those extenders again as i have opted to not use them.

edit: in the above pic i cut into the core trying to determine if there was any hidden construction, there was not.

 

The only thing that goes wrong with those is that when old the insulation eventually breaks down in the plastic in the area of the spring clip that holds on to the top of the plug. If you carefully examine them in the plug end at the point where the clip is closest to the plastic you will see it. They will start to show a mark there in the ID almost as soon as they are put in service but eventually will burn through. I've never really considered it a problem. At every service I examine them and can usually catch it before it becomes a problem. If you are indeed having a misfire problem you will see a black mark on the OD of the connector directly next to the area I spoke of inspecting in the ID. You are lucky you have the red ones, the mark is very easy to see. It is more of a challenge on the black ones. If there is no evidence of a burn through the problem you are having is elsewhere.

As far as longevity goes the wires usually become a problem a service or 2 before the connectors. No secondary ignition part lasts forever and that is one of the big reasons manufacturers have gone to coil on plug. If you really want to solve it go that way yourself. Much better way of lighting a fire.

 

The connectors on my 308 have around 2 kOhm resistance (so there is something other than pure metal in there) and the cables are approx. 1 kOhm more.

I don't use the resistance sparkplugs and till now, I have had no problems with misfires, corrosion and so on. Oh, and no interference on the radio, when it decides to work.

 

it should be noted that i have the electromotive DIS system. to me the extenders are causing more issues than solving. i have no burn thru holes on the insulated jacket, but arcing on the top post. to many slight connections between the coil and the plug for my taste, so i went direct. if one so desires MSD has HEMI tubes built into the custom wire sets that solves this issue also. part# 3475.