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hmmm...so since I'm new to the S, and have no clue which plugs are in mine right now, (since I just recently bought it) which plugs should I put in? I have been thinking about changing them lately just so I know what I've got.
The Denso's (Iridium) actually put out a bigger spark. On a street car such as the S, (stock setup) the plug may get just hot enough to keep itself clean. Don't know about you, but I never, never drive less than 5-10 miles at a time. I get it hot every time I drive it. I would think the Iridiums should last at least 50,000 miles.
I decided to put in my new IK-24's tonight and thought I'd take a photo to show all three together for those of you who might be interested to see what they look like.
The first one is a used OEM platinum plug (the newer one from the spark plug recall). The others, you can see the box label above them.
And a bit of a close up:
An interesting note:
The Denso plug was very hard to open the gap. They come with a very narrow gap, even narrower than what I need for a S/C application. The negative electrode is either extremely hard or very slippery and my plug gapper would not grip it to pull the gap wider. I carefully used needle nose pliers to open them and the gapper to slightly close them back to get the final setting. The positive (center) electrode is very thin and great care should be taken to not touch it with too much force.
ps. The NGKs are also known as "V Power" racing plugs. They have a "V" groove down the middle of the center electrode.
Both the NGK and Denso are 1 step colder than OEM.
For an naturally aspirated engine, what would the spark gap be?
X - have you tried the NGK iridiums? I emailed NGK and asked for their suggestion for a SC plug, they geve me these. Not too expensive either. I ran the 8's but they were not cold enough, just went to the 9's. We'll see.
modifry - No, I've not tried the NGK Iridiums. If these Densos work out, I'm hoping they'll provide years of service.
aRrakis - I routinely check my plugs anyway for signs of running lean, but thanks for the heads up on this. I hope the IK-24s won't have this problem.
I've just come back from a "blast" and quite frankly, my butt dyno tells me there is no difference between the OEM platinums, the copper V plug and now the Iridiums. If anything, I think I would have felt the strongest difference with the copper racing plugs and I never did. However, my car has always run extremely well and I really didn't think plugs would make any difference for my kind of useage. It was worth the experiment though.
Is it just the picture, or does it look like the Denso plugs go deeper into the head meaning they look longer to me.
I think it's just that they are not lined up evenly. I compared the depth before I put them in and they are all the same. You can count the threads to see that all have the same number of threads and the relative distance from the last thread at the top to the tip of the -ive electrode are all about the same.
08-16-2004, 09:29 PM
