How difficult to replace spark plug wires
 

Listers,

Didn't find what I was looking for in the archives...

I believe my spark plug wires need replacing and was wondering how involved is this as a DIY at home. I can easily throw the car up on stands, it doesn't seem too difficult, and a lot of you have talked about doing it, but what are the gotcha's and things to watch out for.

Additionally, for a track car would you recommend anything other than Porsche wires?

Thanks,

-Skip

Not too difficult, just time consuming and nuckle scraping. All my research suggests OEM (Beru) wires are the only way to go.

Agreed on the "time consuming". It took a while with knuckle scrapes but not a hugh problem.

There are a lot worse jobs to do. If you lower the motor down on the engine mounts (it will go down a few inches), and then loosen the rubber connectors to the injector blocks from the intake and pry the intake up off the connectors, it is a LOT easier. If you do it this way, you will be done in a couple of hours max....

Thanks gents. Sounds like it is an exercise in patience.

Skip

It's a lot easier the second time. I put a new set in my prior RSA and then found out that one of the wires had a breach that was causing a short, so I got another set on replacement and re-did the whole thing. The real trick is figuring out all the stuff on top of the engine that needs to be taken off or loosened before routing the wires. The second time, I jsut went to all that suff, took it off, then ran the new wires. Took me about half the time.

Definitely use Beru, because the Beru set comes with grommets, separators etc. Those grommets, separators etc. also come installed on the wires, and effectively pre-sort the wires so you don't have to scratch your head and figure out which of the different length wires belongs to which cylinder & distributor. A few years back I went with Bosch because they were a little cheaper, but only the wires came and they weren't labeled. Not worth it. Go with Beru.

Consider doing a valve adjustment at the same time if you are anywhere near the valve adjustment interval.

Most of the work in doing a valve adjustment is taking things off to get the valves (cat & secondary mufflers, heat shields, blower motor, etc.), but you'll have to take most all that stuff off anyway to get to the wires. The only additional removals you'd need to also adjust the valves would be the tins on the left and right sides of the engine that separate the engine bay from the wheel wells (so you can adjust the intake valves from below, which is especially nice for access to the valves on the #6 cylinder under the power steering pump) and the valve covers themselves.

+1 on the valve adjustment... and while you're in there, (Careful, the list can grow from here) you might consider replacing rotors/caps, and also check to see that the distributor belt is sound too wile the caps are off)