Gentlemen,
I have a question about electrical induction to present to the many electrical guys on the forum. The question relates to a problem that affects many thousands of vehicle owners. Namely, animal vandalism of vehicles, especially vehicle wiring, and very often silicone jacketed spark plug wires. I believe that I have a ‘mod’ that will protect my vehicle wires: steel BX armour. But my design is being rejected by Magnecor upon their opinion that I will create induction issues that will shorten the life of the wires and likely ruin my ignition system. (I am not an electrical engineer and I agree that Magnecor certainly possesses expertise about induction.) However, I know that Taylor markets a very well-respected set of spark plug wires that are steel braided. The Taylor wires are not designed with animal gnawing or chewing in mind. Their braided steel appears to be employed as part of their electrical design for spark. I would like to take the idea of sleeving wires in steel braid "up a notch," and make it a line of defense against squirrels, chipmunks, racoons, etc. that like to attack wires on vehicles. In my locale, northeastern Maine, this is a major problem.
Ok, so I want to take my Magnecor K85 spark plug and coil wires, which I bought with their Nylon Spiral sleeve added on, and I want to put them in an XLPE (PEX) tube that has a 1/8" wall thickness. I then want to take that and put it into a BX steel armour sleeve. I will keep the BX sleeve about 2" short of the plug and dizzy boots. The BX will be painted with Rustoleum, and it will be sealed at both ends to prevent moisture rusting it from the inside. The BX will be grounded with straps that are bolted down. I have no RFI issues to be concerned about. I believe that the animals will either not bother gnawing such wires, or that it would take animals a long time to cause damage to such wires. In any case, I do not believe that there is a better way out there, aside from keeping a vehicle in a well-sealed garage (which I do not have yet).
Magnecor says I can’t do it because I will be creating what is essentially a capacitor. They say that my steel armour will cause induction issues. When pressed, they seem to say that “maybe, perhaps,” if my PEX was 1.5" wall thickness I might get away with it. Of course, that size would be too impractical to pull off. In my research about this, I came upon the Taylor steel braided spark plug wires. They do not seem to have induction issues with their wires which have a lot less space between their conductor and their steel braid than I would have. And even if the Taylor wires have induction issues which might shorten their lifespan, I am not using Taylor wires. I am using Magnecor, which has no induction issues. It seems to me that the sleeves that I add to the Magnecor wires cannot create a condenser because the specifications for a dielectric condenser are not met. Or, if I do create a dialectric condenser, it would be of insignificant voltage and discharge.
What do you guys think? There are two discussions by electricians about this induction issue that might be relevant: one from Magnecor and one from a Taylor user. (The Magnecor article talks about the induction about midway into the article):
http://www.magnecor.com/magnecor1/truth.htmhttp://forums.2gnt.com/dcboard.php?az=printer_friendly&forum=5&topic_id=18666
