Does autolite make good quality products? thinking about getting a set of spark plug wires.
Autolite plug wires?
- Thread starter zeke1985
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NO! Autolite is bottom of the barrel quality. I could tell you horror stories. In reality almost all aftermarket plug wires are poor quality. Bosch is one of the few brands that are trustworthy.
Since you're posting here I hope you know what an "orange can of death" is. If you don't, then you need to do a search for it now. Then consider that Autolite products are packaged in the same orange color. And then let it be known that Autolite and Fram are owned by THE SAME COMPANY!
Back in the 80's I had a '70 Chevelle. I was learning auto mechanics and I remember having fits with fouled plugs. I was using Autolite plugs. I switched to Bosch and the problems stopped!
About the same time a friend of mine had a Mustang that was missing. He had a "new" set of Autolite plug wires on it. We opened the hood at night time with the engine running and we could see a corona eminating from the plug wires. He returned them for a new set. That set lasted one month and did the same thing. He actually got in the habit of returning the wires for warranty every month for the rest of the summer until he got rid of the car.
This same friend had a different Mustang about 10 years ago. It was a fully built high performance Small Block Ford. For some reason he used Autolite plugs in it. He was friends with a guy who ran a dyno shop. The car felt lazy and he dynoed it and found that it was missing over 50 hp. He switched the plugs to Bosch and got the 50hp back.
These are my personal experiences with Autolite. I've avoided thier products since the 1980's after my Chevelle and the "corona" story. My buddy had a brain lapse or something and used the Autolite plugs and it bit him.
The 50hp story sounds hard to believe, but it its true.
That being said, I have had all sorts of bad luck from many aftermarket brands of plug wires. After several painful lessons I try to use Factory origianl equipment wires, or just leave the originals on until you KNOW they have a problem.
One time in the late 80's a different friend had a '67 Chevelle and we "tuned it up" with "Un-Brand" wires, cap, rotor and plugs. It WOULD NOT RUN after we got done. Would not start. After alot of work and head scratching we put the old wires back on. The car ran like new.
Once I had a 5.0L Mustang. I bought Ford Motorsport wires (I had already learned my lesson about aftermarket brands) but I used a Wells brand cap and rotor reasoning that it was a simple fool proof part and was much cheaper than a Ford equivalent. I took the car on a 3000 mi. Vacation. About 3 hours from home the car developed a dead miss any time the car was revved over 3000 rpms. I drove the whole trip, never exceeding 3000 rpms. Got the car back home and had to drive it like that for 2 more months while I was trying to figure out what was wrong. Remembering the '67 Chevelle incident 16 years earlier, I put all the old worn out original stuff back on that still had laying around. The car ran like new. I traced it down the the Wells brand distributor cap.
THE POINT I'M TRYING TO MAKE IS THAT FOR SOME REASON ELECTRICAL SYSTEM COMPONENTS IN THE AFTERMARKET ARE LITERALLY HIT OR MISS. I WOULDN'T USE ANYTHING BUT ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT STUFF.
Except maybe Bosch.
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I can't speak for the spark plug wires but autolite spark plugs have been very good to me. my jeep runs great on them.
I had only good things to say about the Autolite plug wires on my old Buick LeSabre. They were a darned sight better than the degraded factory wires that came on the car. I never had a wire-related problem in the 70k miles I had the car after tuning it up a month after getting it.
The wires are fine, no problems with them or Autolite plugs.
Nothing wrong with Fram filters either, installing an orange Fram doesn't mean a death sentence for the engine.
Its simply a case of better filters are available for less money.
Originally Posted By: j_mac
NO! Autolite is bottom of the barrel quality. I could tell you horror stories. In reality almost all aftermarket plug wires are poor quality. Bosch is one of the few brands that are trustworthy.
Since you're posting here I hope you know what an "orange can of death" is. If you don't, then you need to do a search for it now. Then consider that Autolite products are packaged in the same orange color. And then let it be known that Autolite and Fram are owned by THE SAME COMPANY!
Back in the 80's I had a '70 Chevelle. I was learning auto mechanics and I remember having fits with fouled plugs. I was using Autolite plugs. I switched to Bosch and the problems stopped!
About the same time a friend of mine had a Mustang that was missing. He had a "new" set of Autolite plug wires on it. We opened the hood at night time with the engine running and we could see a corona eminating from the plug wires. He returned them for a new set. That set lasted one month and did the same thing. He actually got in the habit of returning the wires for warranty every month for the rest of the summer until he got rid of the car.
This same friend had a different Mustang about 10 years ago. It was a fully built high performance Small Block Ford. For some reason he used Autolite plugs in it. He was friends with a guy who ran a dyno shop. The car felt lazy and he dynoed it and found that it was missing over 50 hp. He switched the plugs to Bosch and got the 50hp back.
These are my personal experiences with Autolite. I've avoided thier products since the 1980's after my Chevelle and the "corona" story. My buddy had a brain lapse or something and used the Autolite plugs and it bit him.
The 50hp story sounds hard to believe, but it its true.
That being said, I have had all sorts of bad luck from many aftermarket brands of plug wires. After several painful lessons I try to use Factory origianl equipment wires, or just leave the originals on until you KNOW they have a problem.
One time in the late 80's a different friend had a '67 Chevelle and we "tuned it up" with "Un-Brand" wires, cap, rotor and plugs. It WOULD NOT RUN after we got done. Would not start. After alot of work and head scratching we put the old wires back on. The car ran like new.
Once I had a 5.0L Mustang. I bought Ford Motorsport wires (I had already learned my lesson about aftermarket brands) but I used a Wells brand cap and rotor reasoning that it was a simple fool proof part and was much cheaper than a Ford equivalent. I took the car on a 3000 mi. Vacation. About 3 hours from home the car developed a dead miss any time the car was revved over 3000 rpms. I drove the whole trip, never exceeding 3000 rpms. Got the car back home and had to drive it like that for 2 more months while I was trying to figure out what was wrong. Remembering the '67 Chevelle incident 16 years earlier, I put all the old worn out original stuff back on that still had laying around. The car ran like new. I traced it down the the Wells brand distributor cap.
THE POINT I'M TRYING TO MAKE IS THAT FOR SOME REASON ELECTRICAL SYSTEM COMPONENTS IN THE AFTERMARKET ARE LITERALLY HIT OR MISS. I WOULDN'T USE ANYTHING BUT ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT STUFF.
Except maybe Bosch.
I've used Autolite Plugs and wires for decades in various cars, vans, and PU trucks and never had a problem. I am currently running their plugs and wires in my Aerostar and E-150. The Aerostar's wires have at least 140,000 miles on them. It runs like a champ with 205,000 miles on it. Unless the quality took a major dump I'd buy them again.
Their plugs are great.
Sure, anybody can have an oddball lemon, but Autolite makes very good spark plugs.
I can run anything I want to , and have a set in my main car right now.
Wires? No reason to condemn them except in specific circumstances.
I would not think twice about using them. I'd visually check them, of course. Each car may have a different supplier.
As to Bosch plugs, most mechanics have learned to avoid them unless the car came with them.
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As a bug owner and old BMW guy, I am sad to report that Bosch quality is spotty of late. Stock wires were Beru and the perform well enough as long as the car isnt turboed. Anything else doesnt last as well. Not even the 8mm wires.
Buy what you want guys, but I've seen a vastly disproportionate amount of problems with Autolite products.
GMboy,
You said that it wasn't believable that the mustang lost 50hp when my friend installed a new set of Autolite plugs?
Well The power loss was determined with the help of a $60,000 Eddy Current Dyno at Fast Forward Motor Werks in Sarasota Florida back in 2002. Frankie Trombino, a factory BMW and Porsche mechanic did the testing. He also was the Head Mechanic/Tuner at Fast Forward at the time. His shop was a high performance shop for Some of the fastest street cars in the world at the time. This is the kind of guy that routinely disassembled factory new Porsche Turbos and Ferrari's and upgraded them. They were the first shop in North America to build replacement headers for the Porsche Boxster. They had a master fabricator, machinist and weldor on hand. The last time I was in their shop they were building a Prototype twin turbo system for a Ferrari. Joe Rodriguez was the financier and owner. An accomplished road racer, street racer and drag racer, he had one of the fastest true street cars in the USA at the time. It was a 900+ hp. 1994 Porsche 911 turbo. It ran high 8's on the dragstrip with radial tires and could carve corners at Sebring the next evening. And drive back and forth on public roads.
These guys knew their business. My buddy knew them well and when he had this issue, they put the car on the dyno. The car had previously been tuned by them and they knew it was missing 50 hp. Since the plugs were the only thing recently changed, they suspected them. With new Bosch plugs the car picked up the lost 50 hp. Frankie said "I can't believe it!?" "Lets put those Autolites back in. It cant be so."
So, they put the Autolites back in and verified a 50 hp loss. Frankie told me all this over the phone at the time. We were both confused.
The Autolites came out and NONE were ever used again.
I hope this lends some credibility.
It would have been really interesting if they installed a third brand of plugs and see what the results were. Nothing against you, and I can see the folks involved are knowledgable - but I still don't believe a 50hp difference. You said yourself it was a hard to believe story 
Quote:
We are Cycle-Logic Motorsports.com
We are just getting started on being on the forums.
Our original name used to be Fast Forward MotorWerks.
Same shop just a different name.
Trav,
What strange coincidences...
I Hhad a new CBR1000RR in 2007 and remember seeing that link you posted. I stumbled upon it when looking into turbocharging the CBR. I was surprized to see the new company operating out of Fast Forward's shop. I think Frankie and Joe decided to close the shop and do better things. Dave was the master fabricator with Fast Forward. I guess he is the guy who actually hand made the kits for the CBR for this company that took over from Fast Forward.
Have you dealt with this shop Trav? Did you know Frankie and Joe?
No i didn't buy the a kit, i was looking for a kit for the CBR1100XX. I ended up doing a another bike with a Velocity turbo kit.
It really depends on the car. Some Nissans got Autolite wires from the factory, and durability was not an issue there.
A 50 HP loss may be from a broken or faulty plug,or a wildly out of spec heat range, but not from being Autolites.
One possible example out of umpteen jillion does not cut it with me.
They would not be in business 2 days if everyone had such a significant loss when they were installed.
I mean, really now....
j_mac -- bosch plugs, per several threads over the last 2 or 3 years, do not get good reviews here on bitog.
as far as going from autolite to bosch plugs, and gaining 50 hp --it's not possible. if it were true, then all motors produced would be using bosch plugs. if one notices ANY performance gain from changing plugs, it MIGHT gain 2 or 3 hp.-- and that's from butt dyno.no disrespect, but your claim is just not possible. have a good night.
Looking back when i was doing some turbo charging on motorcycles i have seen "regular" plugs have problems at high RPM's in with high pressure turbo units.
These didn't show up as a direct miss but the overall misfire count at 8K-12K RPM was high.
Running multiple ground racing plugs and that took care of it.
I have a feeling that the wrong type and heat range plug was used and they happened to be Autolite brand.
Trav,
When Fast Forward was in business, one of the owner's bikes was the CBR 1100XX. He hated the Hayabusa hype when they came out. He turbocharged the XX to 300+ hp just for loud mouthed Hayabusa owners. He was the same guy with the 900+ hp 911 turbo.
I know what you mean about lots of boost and testing the limits of cheap plugs. Thats what these new guys posting on here dont understand. They say you might see 2 or 3 hp difference, but not 50. A heavily supercharged application will test the limits of the ENTIRE ignition system. Throw a weak plug in there like a junk Autolite and it WILL show its true colors. Throw in cheap manufacturing practices and you'll get some defective parts in the mix.
What I've been saying is that over the last 25 years I've seen MANY Autolite products that have been defective.
For my money there are better choices. Using Autolite products is like playing Russian Roulette to me.
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