You should gap them down if you increase the boost over factory .28 - .32 imho. I've always had good luck with copper plugs... and they are cheap too

 

and IK24 were what my Supra ran. I even had a MAP hose pop off once which caused lots of overfueling as I had to drive it a ways - killing bugs bigtime! Got to where I was going, fixed the hose, car was running on like 4cylinders - barely. Drove it home some miles on the highway and when I arrived home the car was running on all 6! Pulled some plugs - they were clean and fine I was pretty impressed.

As for them getting squished or dropped - the Iridium plugs I used all had collars around them in shipping to prevent this issue. The Iridium wires are quite fragile so gap them and check them VERY carefully. I've heard that having that snap off in the cylinder can be bad as well but it never happened to me or anyone I knew personally.

 

I did the plugs before I did the tune and they were fine before the tune! I did double check the gap on the plugs out of the box - I made sure they were all the same and looked for any damage, etc... I searched the forum and read a ton and nobody mentions gapping the plugs... Just what they used...

I did the best I could at that time for a noob! I am used to wrenching on cars, just not turbo charged cars!

 

Chad was there a DIY writeup you followed to do plugs in 2.5 hours?

 

LOL, well I have it down to 2.5 hours from my first 2 times. First time I had some help and took 3 hours, then next time took me a little while when I replaced coil packs. Then I did plugs again shortly after finding out the coils did not fix the problem. By them I knew every tool, size, and where everything was.

So the DIY's are fine, but experience is the key to doing it quickly...

 

Well, you did nothing wrong per se and if this were soemthing easy like say a Supra it would be no biggie. However on these cars man plugs is a giant hassle and you doing them as fast as that says something. That's pretty quick but still 2.5hours which for many cars is way long. Just the nature of th ebeast and it stinks you had to learn the hard way here :-(

 

which plugs are best for a k16/16?

 

If you change plugs don`t hurry. Especially if you do it at first time.

Two possible ways:

First time and no experience: Remove the rear bumper and the IC and lower the engine.
Check your coil packs and renew the plugs...

experienced can do: only lower the engine and use good tools

You can make many little mistakes...and the result is that a very good Denso IK fails......and you must do it again

For shure a plug change on a 996 engine is not easy DIY

Excuse my english knowledge

A good christmas time.....with spark plugs

 

btw, the reason I put in the iridium plugs was because I wanted them to last as long as possible since they are such a pain to do. My car and Powell's car both have the NGK Iridium plugs in there, and seem to be doing fine(mine at 700 whp and Powell's at 840+whp).

I think the title should be changed as I highly doubt it was an actual failure of the plug. The tip did break off, but the only time I have seen that is if the plugs are not gapped correctly, or there is some hefty detonation. I don't feel there is a need to avoid the plugs altogether...

Justin

 

Anyone bother indexing their plugs? The guys that built my 550 HP 944 Turbo used to be adamant that the plugs be indexed in a specific direction to make sure as much of the spark was pointed at the incoming charge as was possible....

 

Well, the title is the title - can't be edited to my knowledge. But even after what I have been through, I will still choose to avoid them... Sure they "may" be a good plug, but they should advise you on the proper application for the vehicle or create a new part number with a different gap... I guess they expect you to know via osmosis...

 

This is true, they should provide that. "They" being the 6speed shop you bought them from? Gapping Iridium plugs is definitely an art. When it was misfiring, did you get a code for the misfire on that cylinder? For future reference, if you ever get a miss, always check plugs first(usually by changing them). Then wiring, then coil packs.

On 90%+ of the cars, copper or platinum plugs should be perfectly fine. As I mentioned, I just really didn't want to have to change them often on my personal car.

Justin

 

We indexed plugs on a couple of motors and found little difference for every day use. I actually did it once on my LS1 Vette (386WHP on a forged bottom end that was a mild Roadcourse motor) and we picked up about 3HP on a Dynojet. It wasn't worth the effort on that car, but if I were racing (and I'll be racing Miatas next year) and every HP counts, I'd absolutely do indexing. On a street car, it's a *****.

Rainy... Sucking or blowing? come on man!

I'd never pop the bumper and pull the intercoolers (this is for you first timers) without having two extra products handy... Coil packs, and that little bitty bracket that always snaps when you're torquing that (is it the number 3?) plug that ALWAYS snaps that bracket and causes a mis-fire!

Anything less than 650BHP, I use the BOSCH replacement for the BERU... DO NOT use the BERU plug. Don't ASSUME (you know what they say about that phrase, right?) your dealer or indy WON"T put them in... Unfortunately it's what is called for thru 2002. Some idiots only do what it calls for in the FSM!!

Mike

 

I know leaded gas doesn't promote long plug life.

 

.044 Gap might have been fine on a stock car but with the Tune and Increased boost you should have come down to around .030 probably.. We run as tight as .023 on cars running 3+ Bar.. 1 step colder wouldnt hurt either when increasing the boost..