Technical What's the neatest/coolest/cleverest/pretty way to route plug wires on a SBC?

he's on Palominas road, a few miles from here....

but the shop is up in the Phoenix area.

note that the example you show uses the type of manifolds that allow all the wires to come from the top. That's not what atch has, unfortunately.

 

now he has to change manifolds!

 

If you get stuck (like I did) and have to run wires close to the exhaust, I used some high-temp sleeving over the leads . You could spray them black to hide their ugliness if it offends you.
Even the best silicone leads will go crispy if too close to the exhaust.

 

Yes. Keep them out of sight. And please, black only, no colors.

 

I'm in the minority here. must be because when I was young int he early 70's all wires were yellow and over the covers.

I use a cal custom loom attached to the inner fender per my avatar.

 

I’m sure others do it this way, but here’s my way to route the plug wires.
Around the back and under the rams horns. Use looms wherever possible to hold in place. Use a heat shield sleeve where they pass under the exhaust outlet. And depending on your engine mounts, bring the front cylinder wires up through the mount.
Pic from a torque converter swap.

 

I like to get them going in the right direction out of the cap and then out of sight behind the heads and under the exhaust.

 

Here is what I did on mine.

 

This is an excellent way to get inductive coupling, i.e. spark jumping from one wire to another. Really bad advice. Sorry, it looks cool, but electrically it's a really bad idea.
https://www.emc-directory.com/community/what-is-inductive-coupling

 

Depends on wire's ,Maybe a set of $20
Wire set ,
For several years I run wire's all zip tide
Together laying against block , across other plugs , No miss fire , Coil on trains tail, coil wire around 36 inch long to
7,ooo Rpm's this with Accel 9000 wire's.
I have used MSD wire , Blue Max
& even Mallory Mag with fiberglass shield on 10,000 Rpm's Blown Alky

 

"A blind robin gets a worm once in awhile".

 

Perfect.

 

Yes. And 90 degree boots coming out of the cap.

 

On my 62 Bel Air my Corvette plug wires showed up and they were dark blue. My new distributor showed up and it has a red cap and rotor. Maybe I'll worry about the colour later, maybe not. The wires are pretty well hidden under the ram horns, though.

 

That's a real sharp looking engine!

 

They make special black paint for those red or blue distributor caps.

 

If the car runs better I don't really care.

 

You folks have a lot of suggestions about going under the headers/ramhorns; but please remember that it's a physical impossibility to run the 3, 4, 5, & 6 wires UNDER the headers. Unfortunately those 4 wires HAVE to go up towards the valve covers. When Clarence had ramhorns I did have the wires under the exhaust just like the factory did.

Thanks, though, for reading and considering my plight.

 

Please read and see my photo in post #20.
The wires for 4 & 6 are along the oil pan rail, behind the header.
Same with 3 & 5 on the driver side.

 

Phil,

Thanks for your time and response.

Unfortunately while your routing is very neatly done it just won't work with my headers. The 1, 2, 7, & 8 pipes are just not far enough away from the block to allow your routing. I wish it were possible.

fwiw; I've studied every response and pic in this thread and again thank you all for your input.

The solution that I'm contemplating is similar to what @chevyfordman showed in post 25.


EDIT:
Phil, I'm going to reroute my wires like your pic shows and see if there's any way I can keep the wires away from the exhaust pipes. I've been assuming all along that it's impossible, and still think so, but who knows? I'm probably wrong. It's happened before.

 

@atch
Unless you have a Very unusual set of
Block hugger's ,there should be room to run plug wire's along top of plugs below
Ports along head stud's with wire's laying together with No miss fire with decent wires ,

Post #25 neat & typical,
You way need a mix of plug end's
straight ,45 & 90s

There is Not to many option's

You can run wires low near oil pan rail then up.

Not all Header's are made & thought out correct , I have a pair of Sanderson
For Angle , close to 500 not made correct ,
A set of ss $100 chia Nicer , but same with chia , not all made same ..

Head's up for others , Angle headers are
Abetter choice for Angle or none heads.

 

#25 looks pretty nice, and would be an easy install.

 

Yeah, I guess the engine do look real good with those yellow Accel plug wires and the colorful cap; my bad.

 

How about something like this

 

That's pretty close to what I have in mind.

 

I guess you missed what I said the first time. Nothing yellow on mine.

 

I ran the plug wires through Delron blocks before attaching the dist. cap ends. I made a sheet metal plate mounted to the block behind the head. Attaching the blocks to the plate, always use black plug wires! Tried to keep things neat and orderly.

 

^ ^ First one I've seen on this thread that I have really liked. Unfortunately, the only SBC I'll ever run is in my C2.

 

Nice & Neat
Not Block hugger thoe ,the Op using