When did hotrodders start using braided stainless steel covered spark plug wires?

Can anyone tell me when hotrodders started using this kind of plug wire. I kinda remember seeing some being used in some rides in 50's-60's magazines but how far back did that start? Didn't some early Corvettes use them too? Any info much appreciated.

 

Military used them with a ground wire on each end for radio interference ...

some used &sealed to water proof spark plugs...

 

Show car stuff; no net benefit.

 

Dad's 69 Corvette came with/has them. The distributor is also inside a chrome shielded box. A little too new to answer your question though sorry..

 

Bump for the morning crew.

 

They are worthless. I have used them in the past and if you do decide to run them make sure you are getting a really good ground.

 

I think the guys pretty well nailed it. On Corvettes for radio noise suppression and on military rigs for both radio noise and waterproofing reasons but I've never seen them on a hot rod that I know of. There may be some aftermarket "for added effect" stuff that guys put on but It was never popular with most rodders.

 

I think you might be confusing 2 different things. I never saw the dress up item of braided stainless covered wires in the 60s. It was not old school for me at all.

Corvette wires were done this way for radio noise suppression and I believe were the first stainless covered wires until they came out as a dress up item.. It had nothing to as a dress up item and were often removed from the Corvettes of that time.

Exactly what year they came out is up for debate but for the purposes of the HAMB time line they are not HAMB friendly if that is the concern meaning that it is an old time dress up item.

 

I never saw them on hot rods. I have some on an m-37 Army Power Wagon. They are kind of hard to find and a little expensive.

 

Thanks for the replies. I saw some NOS flathead ones in the HAMB classifieds http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=699916 and wondered if they were used on hot rods. Don't know if they worked well or not but they the aftermarket did make them way back when.

 

I don't know about in cars but when I was in the Army we used it on pretty much all our electronics to help protect the cabling and to help with heat dispersion.

 

Are you thinking of the braided covering for wires and hoses that had a brief vogue in the late 70s or early 80s? It was meant to ape the military surplus hoses and wires some race cars were using.

 

I saw the wires in the HAMB classifieds, see my link in my previous post, and wondered if anyone had used them back when. Not talking about the Taylor or Magnum stuff from the 80's. The ones in the HAMB ad were aftermaket from the 40's-50's. I had never seen ones that old that weren't military type items. These were just some replacements for OEM. Don't know if there was a any pros or cons to using them so I thought I'd see what you guys think.

 

As can be seen in the picture, SMALL BLOCK Corvettes DID NOT come from the factory with "BRAIDED STAINLESS STEEL SPARK PLUG WIRES". Corvette plug wires on RADIO-equipped cars came with what Vette guys commonly refer to as "shielding". Shielding was a complex, multi-piece maze of metal covers to enclose the distributor and ALMOST the entire length of the plug wires to help radio suppression. DD

 

Correct but the big blocks did.

 

I knew some SHARP guy would catch that. Good one, Tommy! DD

 

Hey, my name's SHARP and all of our small block Vettes had the distributor shield with a short stainless cover continuing over just part of the wires out of the dist.