LawlessOne

Never have before, the wires I had on for the last year never had a problem once, had a problem on the highway the other day and car died at 70mph, when I coasted to the gas station plug wire was popped off.

I ended up having to replace the igniter cause I was getting spark from coil, but not from the wires. Replaced Distributor cap and button, but the damn plug wire closest to passenger side keeps popping off.

Exchanged wires for a new set, replace PCV valve, still popping off. Saw this thread, tried the 'burping' or rolling up edges of the tube cover, still popping off. Never popped off like this in the 7 years I've had it.

Plug doesn't look to be cross threaded, and no oil in plug well to indicate bad seals. Rocker seals have been replaced previously.

I'm at a loss as to why this is happening, really no explanation for it, car runs fantastic, then stupid wire pops off and putter putter. Really drives a man nuts.

Anybody experience anything like this or find anything out on this. The wires are Borg/Warners but not the cheapest ones, and I had no problem with the last set of them for over a year, so I don't think that is the reason.

Jmb106jr

I once bought a set of Duralast wires from Autozone that would not snap on the plugs of my civic. Returned them and the counter person took a pair of needle nose pliers and pulled the contact out of the boot and handed them back to me and i said no thanks, I will take my money back thank you. I would reccomend OEM or NGK wires my self.

chikin pickle

If you have an F22B1 and they gave you F22B2 or F22A plug wires they won't fit. The B1s have a longer plug tube. Check that first.

LawlessOne

Now that is the first thing that has made sense to me.

Today I went and got a new felpro valve cover gasket and replaced that as well as the seals for between cover and plug tubes (rocker assy seals have previously been replaced and plug wells are bone dry).

I will check that tomorrow, O'Really's just closed shop.

LawlessOne

Checked motor, F22A1

Will the B1 head bolt up to a A1 block?

I'm not the original owner, so it may not be the original head. I don't think it's likely cause there have been a lot of original parts. But maybe sometime before me it overheated and they swapped the head out, never know.

Are there markings on the head that would identify it?

holmesnmanny

lol I thought this only happened to me, only happened with certain wires, i think the kragen brand, some cheap brand, switch to NGK and you won't have that problem anymore.

LawlessOne

I wouldn't mind switching to NGK's especially if they have a lifetime warranty on them.

Their expensive, but I imagine comparable to OEM Honda. As long as either of these are definite goodies I'm all for it.

The thing that is bothering me is that the set I had on started doing this, but were fine for at least a year, maybe two. Then all of a sudden it's a problem, even after exchanging for a new set because they have lifetime replacement on them, damnest thing I think.

I was now tinkering with the idea of a possible leak in the head gasket till I got a chance to get back to the forums and see Chickin's response

GhostAccord

If it is an F22A* head it will have PT3 cast on it. An F22B2 will have a P0B stamped on it and the F22B1 is the easy one, it has the word VTEC written on the valve cover. It will also have P0A stamped on it.

LawlessOne

this isn't marked on the front of the head is it?

GhostAccord

On the F22B1 the word VTEC is written across the valve cover, the F22B1 also doesn't have lower tube seals. So if you replaced seals under the rocker assembly you do not have a VTEC head.

If your exhaust ports are evenly spaced, 0-0-0-0 it's an F22A. Shown here on top

If they are not evenly spaced, 0-00-0 shown on the bottom. It is the F22B2.

IIRC The area circled in red is where you will find the PT3 casting and the area circled in yellow is where you will find the P0A/P0B casting.

LawlessOne

Awesome Ghost, you F'in rock!

thanks so much, will check again now


Ok that's settled, F22A head

so, I suppose it's to O'Reallys tomorrow to see what I can do about plug wires, maybe I'll get lucky

If not, different wires and see how that ends up and will make sure to post up to resolution.

holmesnmanny

When this happened to me, it was only one wire, and i had em swapped then about 7500 miles later it was two popping up. By the time I got to kragen i was driving on two cylinders. I swapped them yet again then bought ngk and never had the problem again. I never had problems with Bosch either, tbh. But I never hear anything bad about NGK and I've heard that Honda's hate Bosch.

Nicefeet

Do youe plug wires have the little air hole in the boots? If they don't that is one reason why they pop off. The air expand just a little bit in the tube well pushing the plug wire off.

LawlessOne

No air holes that I've seen. I thought about that, and thought I might try making an air hole for them. My concern about that was, do I have an underlying problem with excessive pressure under the valve cover that I need to discover the cause of?

Bump for the NGK vouch, I'm thinking about going that route. Is there a lifetime warranty on the NGK wires? If so, I'm definitely down with that!

I'm gonna try some pliers to crimp the connector a bit, then try to make an air hole and see what happens, if they're unsuccessful, I'll go NGK if they have the lifetime warranty on them. Otherwise, depending on price versus Honda, I may go with the Honda wires.

Thank you to all of you for the information and help thus far! This forum is the absolute ****!

nus_dogg

Only reason I can think of when popping off like that is due to that wire itself because it's suppose to be on there tight enough where it won't pop off.

Like mentioned before, OEM or NGK. I had both and never once have I gotten any problems with mine(knock on wood).

EDM/CD5

i had the same problem its either the spark plug it self or ur getting cheap wires or something is rubbing an popping it off those r the only possibilities

smoore117

Check the plugs themselves. I had one break but stay inside the metal part of the plug. Switched to ngk plugs no problems so far.

LawlessOne

Got it resolved (I think).

Damnest thing, although it takes two or three minutes and considerable exertion to try to take the plug wires off by hand, it seems to be a lot easier to drive down the road and let it pop off itself.

But seriously, I tried making a hole in the top of the boot in the event that it was air pressure building up, and this did nothing.

Finally, took the rubber piece off of the stem that slips over the insulator of the plug and haven't had any trouble since. As a matter of fact, I stopped having trouble with this one popping off, and then a different one popped off, so I took the rubber piece of the end of the plug stem of all of them.

This makes the wires much easier to pull back off, unlike before, but they stay on like this. My only conclusion I can base from this is that the rubber piece is swelling to the point that it pushes the wire back off of the plug enough to either make air pressure blow it off, or the spark jumping between the top of the plug and the connector is making it pop up. It's the only thing I can think off that makes the most sense.

So if your having this problem, do yourself a big favor and take those blasted rubber tips off of the end of the plug wire tubes and plug your wires back on, this may save a lot of aggravation!

wk9k

Can you or someone please post a visual of this rubber piece off of the stem that slips over the insulator of the plug im having the same problem. Would really like to see a pic of what you did.

djkurious

Just use NGK plugs and NGK wires and this will not be a issue.
Using other brands that are not made for the car will have fitament issues.

MAD_MIKE

Agreed. The NGK goodies often have a hard plastic tip on the bottom and the actual seal that retains the boot is at the top. Other brands use a full rubber/neoprene boot that seals at the bottom. When the boot is installed it seals around both the plug and hole, fully seated on the plug it will compress the air slightly. Warm the engine up and the compressed air tries to expand from the heat. A few miles down the road the boot pops off.