What spark plug has worked best in your car let me know I used to have some denso iridium and lost them somehow well lets here ur stories.

 

PFR6G11
PFR7G11
BKR6EVX11
BKR7EVX11

 

I don't buy into marketing hype. Plain old copper tip NGK plugs are what I use. They are relatively cheap, have the proper thread pitch, and work flawlessly for the 30,000 miles I run them.

 

I like BERU Silverstone

 

Note: BERU's are non-resistor plugs, they'll cause additional RF inerference.

Copper or platinum tipped NGK's will work fine in virtually any application, just choose the heat range and tip material that best suits your needs. I use platinum because that's what the car came with, and the plug life has proven to be fantastic. I've got 87,000 on them and they still look fine.

 

working at a dealership i have noticed prbloems when people replace their plugs. for some reason japanese cars only like japanese plugs. german cars like german plugs etc. a lot of times people come in with ignition problems and we just replace plugs with proper ones. i dont know why(im just a lube tech) but ive seen it a hundred times. and i learned it from the techs who have seen it thousands of times. also if you have stock platinum tipped use platinum tipped. this is strictly out of experience no boosheet.

 

Straight NGK's in the proper heat range have worked great for me and all of my friends, and they're using those plugs in n/a, nitrous'd, and boosted motors.

 

ngks

 

I'm with you on that. The most important thing is to select the proper heat range of plug. A hotter plug won't make you faster, and a colder plug won't make you faster either. Only exceptions should be different compression and power gains. Therefore, stock is the best. NGK for life for me..

On a side note, if you guys are interested in platinum plugs, I wouldn't go for the gimmick ones. (Example: Bosch platinum +4). They are absolute ****.

 

what is it about the bosch plat+4's that suck so bad, specifically? My car came with them and I ended up replacing them b/c they sucked, made a bad misfire. I've heard a bunch of stuff about how they suck

 

Some people would get a studdering in the engine. For me, they just didn't fire right, studdering was evident too..

Supposedly their little theory in designing them was that "The best spark is the longest spark" so they made the platinum tip smaller, and cluttered it with those 4 ugly *** prongs. I don't think they're a bad plug, but they certainly don'y perform well in honda's IMO.

 

Spark duration has nothing to do with plug design.

 

Are you telling me this? Would you like to elaborate? I think it does...

edit:

Your spark plug doesn't determine spark duration, that's obvious.

I'm not making this up. And if you are going to say something, you should atleast back it up with proof. Do you design spark plugs? Then how the **** do you know?


[Modified by Nameless, 5:57 PM 2/4/2003]

 

A spark is generated because enough voltage reaches the plug to cause the arcing over from electrode to ground strap. What generates that voltage and for how long is the coil, and in the case of distributor based systems how long the voltage is sent to the plug tip can also be potentially varied by reluctor contact time (or whatever electronic circuit may be used in place of the traditional reluctor wheel). Though the reluctor is almost certainly closing the circuit for longer than 2 milliseconds, so that's not really an issue. There are two basic types of coils used in cars; capacitive discharge and inductive. Inductive coils take longer to build up charge but also release it over a longer period of time (usually on the order of ~2 milliseconds), while cap discharge setups generate full voltage almost instantly but release their energy in very short bursts ( ~.02 milliseconds). How long the spark lasts at the plug tip is dependent upon how the coil discharges it's voltage, which is governed by basic design.

 

If you're agreeing with me why are you pissed off?

 

I'm not pissed...

Seems like you're talking about the vehicle's ignition system, which yah, determines the duration. I'm talking about the spark plug design, the 4 prongs.

"The longest spark", meaning physical length. Not duration. Which to me really didn't make sense because the spark is going to take the path of least resistance when jumping to the "grounding strap/s". It's not going to take the longest route, unless you can prove me wrong there..

edit: I guess saying "I think it does" gave you that idea.. sorry.



[Modified by Nameless, 6:17 PM 2/4/2003]

 

No problem, and yes I thought by you're saying "longest" you were referring to duration and not total spark gap. And yes of course you are right, the electricity will flow to wherever the least resistance is, and that should always be the shortest path in this case.

Bosche +4's and the like are gimmicks that have been repeatedly used over the years to sell product. Only one electrode and one grounding strap are needed, so why add more? Any additional material is just getting in the way of proper plug function. Additionally, plug gap should be set to give the largest possible spark that can be reliably generated at high RPM. Virtually all OEM ignition sytems are inductively chargd and need time to generate full primary voltage; as RPM rises this charging time drops below optimal and as a result so does output voltage. Once the coil output voltage is below the point needed to reliably create a spark, you'll begin having misfires. Whatever that optimal gap is with your specific setup, go with it (can be found through experimentation). The idea that a single part # plug gap would work well in a variety of different applications (as Bosche would evidently have you believe) is ludicrous.

 

I've been using Bosch Pt+4 plugs for years, & haven't had any trouble. Isn't the idea supposed to be a surface-arc? What's all that about? Obviously Bosch likes to believe its good, but I'm curious... Does it allow a longer arc length for a given voltage since its not all air-gap?

My experience:

'89 Saab 900: Bosch Pt & Pt+4 were good for close to 200k miles. Slight, noticeable improvement (power) & long life. Lots of Saab turbo owners have trouble with misfiring under boost with Pt plugs. They gotta use Cu.

'95 GS-R: Bosch Pt+4 work good for me for the past 70k miles. Slight, noticeable improvement... (I'm not doing any boost.)

'98 Accord still has OEM plugs cause I haven't changed it yet.

'01 Saab has to use NGKs cause it measures spark voltage & current for knock sensing.

 

That doesn't make sense to me either if that was their design. Another thing about the +4's is you can't clean and regap them like regular plugs. I stick with NGK stocks.

 

i guess im an idiot. i use bosch super.

 

I noticed an immediate improvement when switching to the BERU Silverstone plugs over the stock Platinum NGK's. The platinum plugs had about ~25k on them.

While I did not try switching out stock plats for another new set of stock plats, I'm currently still in favor of the BERU's. In other words, the OEM Plats (NGK) had lost atleast some potential even though they are rated to go much longer (~90k for the factory schedule...although it's not "performance" oriented). I'm curious to hear you expand upon your thoughts on them.

 

 

What kind of improvement did you notice?

 

My thoughts on the BERU plugs: I don't like non-resistor plugs. They generate elevated levels of RF interference due to design, much like the Nology plug wires do. Most of the electrical resistance in the ignition system is by design, because the RF noise suppression also adds electrical flow supression. There's obviously nothing wrong with this approach, as cars continue to work all over the world as of right now. Also, I don't see the reason to use silver as an electrode material when copper, costing FAR less, is only 6% worse at flowing electricity and heat (in other words, the 2nd best metal). I also don't see any problems with coating the plug tip with .010" of platinum, as this will make the electrode last FAR longer than with any material available other than iridium. It also allows you to use a narrower tip, which further enhances spark generation.

Basically I see nothing wrong with the NGK platinum plugs, and I'm not one to try and improve upon what already works perfectly. I've swapped out several sets of plugs over my life and have never noticed a difference in performance (except when I had a fouled set), but I suppose my butt dyno is just not finely calibrated enough to notice 1-2% differences in power output.

Ps- Most of the BS you hear about electrical conductivity is a joke, especially where platinum is concerned. One hundreth of an inch worth of platinum makes no appreciable difference at all to current flow potential, especially when you have an air gap in series with the platinum.

 

primarily smoother idle and better throttle response.

both stock plats and BERU's were gapped correctly

edit//// texan posted before me

Texan - you have a great argument there. I don't really see any value in the Nology "engineering" or plug wires either...although they happen to sell the BERU's.

From a cost standpoint the BERU's where cheaper than the platinums. The coppers are obviously the cheapest of the bunch...even if you factor earlier replacement. I'm still a bit torn of the resistivity argument for the time being, and will read further about it.

Conductivity of metals (shows your point)
http://www.amm.com/index2.htm?/ref/conduct.HTM


[Modified by Tweakmeister, 4:34 PM 2/5/2003]