Mythbuster/Does-it-work? Best I-Cable spark plug cables
As some of you may already know, I'm a huge DIY junkie and if I can do it, I will. This has presented me with a problem - skepticism. I am one of the biggest skeptics known amongst my friends when it comes to car modification voodoo. So hence this new article.
Welcome then, to episode one of my many soon to come future 'mythbuster' / 'does-it-work' type of features where I'll dissect (where possible), provide unbiased critique and where possible scientific data on anything that I come across. I'll be purchasing most of the items myself (otherwise donated) so there will be no twisting of words just to favour the product, manufacturer or seller.
First up, Best I-Tech's spark plug cable. In the market these days there are so many aftermarket cables that claim the world and each brand has their own market. But to date my question "How is your cable better and why?" is only responded with marketing hype without any scientific proof or any logical reasoning on how it works. That was until I came across this video :
Just by changing the cable your spark energy is increased by that much? I had to do my thang and asked the combo trio "what, how and why". Surprisingly, Best I-Tech's big kahuna, the inventor and patent holder for this cable responded to my query and even agreed to a meetup to discuss technicalities of his product. Dr Joe Lam, a Canadian Chinese (I think), the mild manner man but has great technical know-how on all things automotive as well as electrical. After a good hour of discussion on his product (I could go in-depth about what we discussed but it would be too long and too boring) I was still not convinced.
Essentially what his product does is what MSD is doing with their powerful aftermarket coils : making the spark bigger and way stronger. The only difference is this Best I-Cable (as Joe called it) is easily one quarter the price of a MSD coil.
Not bad.
Joe explained that he holds the patent for this cable design so his product is unique. He's also approached several OEM manufacturers and offered his product to be installed in their factory output cars, just so they have, I quote : "Better emissions, better torque, better power and cheaper to operate in the long run". Save the catcons!
He offered a loaner cable for testing purposes with no strings attached. Whether it worked or not I'd publish my findings here in ZTH. Yes - a loaner. Meaning I have to return it. Meaning I can write whatever I find out whether good or bad and their reputation will be put on the line.
Big balls! I like that.
Ok! Challenge accepted.
I had it installed on my Wira since it's easier to plug and play compared to the COP (coil on plug) Myvi which required some modification to my stock cables which I wasn't keen on doing since this was just a test. Bright red silicon sleeves and shiny black ends with what seems to be copper/brass connectors. I'm totally digging the colour scheme. Did I ever mention I am a closet Ah Beng? Bring on the bling babeah!
First impressions was.... nothing felt different. Now, Joe explained earlier that since the spark is a lot stronger, I'd need to tune the car to make use of stronger spark, much like what I'd have to do if I were using a MSD coil. But since my car is using the stock ECU (Siemens VDO), I'd just have to wait for it to self adapt.
Now at this point I must mention that my car has been setup to run on RON95 but it'll knock during higher revs. A little aggressive ignition timing mods, hello-kitty camshafts, stroker, oversized pistons, high compression, the works. Everything NA I could have possibly DIY-ed (sorta), I have already done so. So essentially any differences in performance would stick out like a sore thumb, for me anyway.
The next day I decided to take the car for a Dyno test. My car had been dynoed at GT-Auto sometime ago and the figures from then-stock to now-modded is about 15~20whp so imagine my surprise when I saw my A/F so majorly screwed up. The two lines you see is blue line - stock Proton spark plug cables and red line - Best I-Cable.
2ps difference? That's it? GT-Auto's Thomas at that point adjusted my AFPR for me and re-tested with the Best I-Cable.
Better. Unfortunately at that time it started to rain and I had to rush back to attend to a personal matter and I wanted to avoid the massive jam usually associated to Federal highway, PJ and rain.
At this point I wasn't sure what was what. Perhaps my ECU hadn't adapted? Siemens VDO on the Wira usually takes a day or 2 to adapt to changes in A/F which is why air chargers don't work with Wiras running VDO ECUs. They just adapt and make your RM100+ purchase redundant.
Picture courtesy of Ahjun Soo
I recently had the best time revving the crap outta my car at the 4G1Series Dato Sagor track day (which I'll be writing about later) and that gave the car plenty of time to get used to the new cables.
This is where it gets interesting.
After almost a month of using the Best I-Cable I could not for the life of me feel any difference, until I decided to swap back to my original Proton cables. My car was sputtering during idle, revving was significantly slower, car felt sluggish, the works! Just to make sure it wasn't just a placebo, I got my wife who's significantly butt-dyno numb to try the car with the stock cables. After which I reinstalled the Best I-Cable and lo-and-behold, she told me it felt faster and was significantly better to drive.
I didn't tell her what had changed because that would've been pointless. She can't tell the difference between an oil filter and an oversized piston, so why bother?
But the unscientific evidence was irrefutable. The car was more responsive, had better power, better acceleration and even idled better with the Best I-Cable. The car had adapted to whatever it was the Best I-Cable gave it and damn was it good.
Once I find the time this month or next, I'll bring the car to GT-Auto again for another dyno-run. Best I-Tech themselves have their own Dyno test results too if you're interested.
Until then I'll leave you with these closing remarks :
Does it work? Hell yes. Caveat is you need to have your ECU tuned to work with the cables. In my case it was self-adapting. Once tuned, it'll work nicely.
Would I buy it? Are you kidding? How can I go back to stock after this?
Who should buy it? Anyone with spark plug cables.Apparently they cater for COP as well.
Their website : http://best-itech.com
As some of you may already know, I'm a huge DIY junkie and if I can do it, I will. This has presented me with a problem - skepticism. I am one of the biggest skeptics known amongst my friends when it comes to car modification voodoo. So hence this new article.
Welcome then, to episode one of my many soon to come future 'mythbuster' / 'does-it-work' type of features where I'll dissect (where possible), provide unbiased critique and where possible scientific data on anything that I come across. I'll be purchasing most of the items myself (otherwise donated) so there will be no twisting of words just to favour the product, manufacturer or seller.
First up, Best I-Tech's spark plug cable. In the market these days there are so many aftermarket cables that claim the world and each brand has their own market. But to date my question "How is your cable better and why?" is only responded with marketing hype without any scientific proof or any logical reasoning on how it works. That was until I came across this video :
Just by changing the cable your spark energy is increased by that much? I had to do my thang and asked the combo trio "what, how and why". Surprisingly, Best I-Tech's big kahuna, the inventor and patent holder for this cable responded to my query and even agreed to a meetup to discuss technicalities of his product. Dr Joe Lam, a Canadian Chinese (I think), the mild manner man but has great technical know-how on all things automotive as well as electrical. After a good hour of discussion on his product (I could go in-depth about what we discussed but it would be too long and too boring) I was still not convinced.
Essentially what his product does is what MSD is doing with their powerful aftermarket coils : making the spark bigger and way stronger. The only difference is this Best I-Cable (as Joe called it) is easily one quarter the price of a MSD coil.
Not bad.
Joe explained that he holds the patent for this cable design so his product is unique. He's also approached several OEM manufacturers and offered his product to be installed in their factory output cars, just so they have, I quote : "Better emissions, better torque, better power and cheaper to operate in the long run". Save the catcons!
He offered a loaner cable for testing purposes with no strings attached. Whether it worked or not I'd publish my findings here in ZTH. Yes - a loaner. Meaning I have to return it. Meaning I can write whatever I find out whether good or bad and their reputation will be put on the line.
Big balls! I like that.
Ok! Challenge accepted.
I had it installed on my Wira since it's easier to plug and play compared to the COP (coil on plug) Myvi which required some modification to my stock cables which I wasn't keen on doing since this was just a test. Bright red silicon sleeves and shiny black ends with what seems to be copper/brass connectors. I'm totally digging the colour scheme. Did I ever mention I am a closet Ah Beng? Bring on the bling babeah!
First impressions was.... nothing felt different. Now, Joe explained earlier that since the spark is a lot stronger, I'd need to tune the car to make use of stronger spark, much like what I'd have to do if I were using a MSD coil. But since my car is using the stock ECU (Siemens VDO), I'd just have to wait for it to self adapt.
Now at this point I must mention that my car has been setup to run on RON95 but it'll knock during higher revs. A little aggressive ignition timing mods, hello-kitty camshafts, stroker, oversized pistons, high compression, the works. Everything NA I could have possibly DIY-ed (sorta), I have already done so. So essentially any differences in performance would stick out like a sore thumb, for me anyway.
The next day I decided to take the car for a Dyno test. My car had been dynoed at GT-Auto sometime ago and the figures from then-stock to now-modded is about 15~20whp so imagine my surprise when I saw my A/F so majorly screwed up. The two lines you see is blue line - stock Proton spark plug cables and red line - Best I-Cable.
2ps difference? That's it? GT-Auto's Thomas at that point adjusted my AFPR for me and re-tested with the Best I-Cable.
Better. Unfortunately at that time it started to rain and I had to rush back to attend to a personal matter and I wanted to avoid the massive jam usually associated to Federal highway, PJ and rain.
At this point I wasn't sure what was what. Perhaps my ECU hadn't adapted? Siemens VDO on the Wira usually takes a day or 2 to adapt to changes in A/F which is why air chargers don't work with Wiras running VDO ECUs. They just adapt and make your RM100+ purchase redundant.
Picture courtesy of Ahjun Soo
I recently had the best time revving the crap outta my car at the 4G1Series Dato Sagor track day (which I'll be writing about later) and that gave the car plenty of time to get used to the new cables.
This is where it gets interesting.
After almost a month of using the Best I-Cable I could not for the life of me feel any difference, until I decided to swap back to my original Proton cables. My car was sputtering during idle, revving was significantly slower, car felt sluggish, the works! Just to make sure it wasn't just a placebo, I got my wife who's significantly butt-dyno numb to try the car with the stock cables. After which I reinstalled the Best I-Cable and lo-and-behold, she told me it felt faster and was significantly better to drive.
I didn't tell her what had changed because that would've been pointless. She can't tell the difference between an oil filter and an oversized piston, so why bother?
But the unscientific evidence was irrefutable. The car was more responsive, had better power, better acceleration and even idled better with the Best I-Cable. The car had adapted to whatever it was the Best I-Cable gave it and damn was it good.
Once I find the time this month or next, I'll bring the car to GT-Auto again for another dyno-run. Best I-Tech themselves have their own Dyno test results too if you're interested.
Until then I'll leave you with these closing remarks :
Does it work? Hell yes. Caveat is you need to have your ECU tuned to work with the cables. In my case it was self-adapting. Once tuned, it'll work nicely.
Would I buy it? Are you kidding? How can I go back to stock after this?
Who should buy it? Anyone with spark plug cables.Apparently they cater for COP as well.
Their website : http://best-itech.com
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My daily road is Kuala Kelawang, Genting Press, hulu Langat, Ampang to KL and also return home. I have tried many type of tyres...
