SMP Solves OE Wire Terminal Design Problem SMP was approached by one of our major OE automotive customers to help resolve a serious problem they were having with specific high volume ignition wire leads that were part of their assembly process. The existing leads were very difficult to place onto the engine during the assembly process as the force to insert the ignition wire lead onto the spark plug was in excess of 75 Newtons. This caused ergonomic concerns and led to installation and assembly delays for our customer. SMP’s challenge was to meet our customer’s in-house safety requirement by reducing the measure of insertion force to under 75 Newtons while ensuring that the lead would stay in precise position during installation and service removal. Additionally, the same component was experiencing significant failures due to spark arcing subsequently causing damage to other expensive engine components. Our OE customer challenged SMP to come up with a solution to these issues. The product design team of our Wire & Cable business unit engineered a new terminal that decreased the insertion force to an average of 45 Newtons (the closest any competitor came was over 90 Newtons). The SMP team increased the tolerance of the insertion angle while adhering to all established electrical, insertion and retention force requirements. The insertion force decreased allowing for trouble-free installation and lowering the repetitive motion concerns. Even with this extremely low insertion number, our improved design passed stringent side load testing and revealed that it would not rotate inside the spark plug boot which eliminated the micro-arcing problem. A unique tension retainer designed by SMP ensured that even with this significantly lower insertion force, the lead would stay put under all conditions. This new terminal is now in pre-production build and SMP is taking advantage of additional OE production opportunities including component participation in the development of OE engine platforms. TOP