Solid core plug wires?

[Alienbaby17]

Hey all-
Just last Sunday I got a '39 Ford with the original flathead in it. (Pictures to be posted soon).
The former owner told me he thought it needed some plug wires.
I did a little reading to day on the subject and have a few questions...

DO I need to run the solid core plug wires on this engine?
If I do will it effect a radio if I install one? I'd read it only messed up AM but...?
I'd also read that the "Packard 440 wires" are the hot ticket for this engine. I'd been thinking about going that route. I'm not planning to do anything else to modify the ignition or the otherwise stock engine for a while.

If I were to something like the Taylor spiral core wires would I notice a difference?

I just want this engine to be reliable and perform well.

Jay

 

[eugene vik]

the solid wires will be a verbal oscilliscope, you will get a blip on radio if you got errant or dead spark i would imagine

coils are sometimes made for the wires and i am sure it is designed for the ohms of solid I am sure the packard 440 will be more adequate than original

maybe if you full house the flattie the old transparent red and some Rajha terminals would be trik, going to do that to my 302 to make it look old?? hate to take the pretty Talor yellow wires off it tho????

 

[Gastrick]

Alienbaby, There's no reason that you have to run solid core wires on the flatty. You can run them if you want to but there's no reason that you have to. Yes, in the 50's the Packard 440 wires were considered the hot set up and if that's what you want, you can get reproduction Packard 440 solid core cable.

I have used braided cloth solid care plug wires before and I was pleased with them and they looked nice. The only reason I changed them was because I switched to an electronic distributor.

Taylor wires are good. There is only a disadvantage to them if you are attempting to make your engine look nostalgic. If you are going to install a radio, do yourself a favor and stay away from the solid core wires, use a quality suppression wire. And don't use solid core wires if you plan to use an electronic distributor. I killed a distributor module in short order that way.

 

[Alienbaby17]

I'm thinking I'd like to install a radio, but as much as I love travelling with tunes that flatty rumble is pretty easy on the ears! A radio may not end up being something I do this summer.

I'm kind of going back-and-forth on how original or retro looking I want to keep the flathead.
I'd also seen those cloth covered wires. They look very cool. I found two vendors that sell that stuff. I think I may go with the solid cores for this year just to have the cool cloth wires with the rajah ends. I like the fact that I can have orange cloth covered spark plug wires!
I just wanted an opinion as to how well those cloth covered ones would work or if they were just for looks.

It's too bad someone doesn't make a cloth cover to put over modern wires to hide their "newness." Seems like that could be a hot seller.

Thanks for the input.

Jay

 

[Gastrick]

AB17. The solid core wires perform well. Here's a pic of my engine when I was running them.



I got the wire from Brillman in a spool and added the ends myself. Brillman also has the 440 Packard wire and the Raja ends. Here's a link for ya.

http://www.brillman.com/

 

[Alienbaby17]

Great looking engine- thanks for the link!

Jay