ok so i just bought my 96 max like a few weeks ago. been doing the basics and getting her up to par as far as the maintinance goes. today i bought the platnum laser plugs, the oe plug for the max, from napa and installed um. took about an hour n a half... ran into a problem with one, it almost stripped out on me... and of course the last plug with the egr in the dang way just made it all that much more fun. anywho, swapped the plugs and turned her on. not sure if this is normal but when i first started it up it was sitting about 1200rpm. then slowly crept down to 850 er 900. took it for a test drive, and holy cow what a dif! the little idle shake i had before, non existant, i felt absolutely nothing. i could feel a little more umph too. i was pullen hard enough to chirp going into third and my mom heard it about 200 yards away lol. she asked about it when i got back haha! ive got pics on the difference on the plugs from the new lasers and the old platnum plus bosch... oh and there was one REALLY old laser plug under the egr part... someone was LAZY!

so whats everyone else usen for plugs, cause id really reccomend these puppies! 100000 mile life... no joke... n what about coils? anybody change those n got some suggestions? oh by the way those plugs are $12 each...

 

NGKs are fine. Platinum or Copper doesn't really matter....platinums just last longer.

Reason your car was idle-ing bad is becasue you had those piece of crap Bosch plugs. Glad to see your plugs did a difference.

 

yeah they were the better of the bosch, platnum plus'. but it made a world of difference. the guy before i owned it said he changes his every 20000... thats a lil crazy, and now that i saw my plugs id have to say a lil bs. n the way i was eplained on the lazers was that they just had the highest heat rating.. not that i drive her that hard but i figured id go with oem and have the best of the best... the coppers wont stand up to the heat like the platnum or the platnum lazers and could cause problems in the long run. not so much problems as false readings on the sensors and tripping stuff that doesnt need to be lol

 

tnx for sharing the experience was gonna do a basic tuneup on my 98 today will probably get platinum laser ones now...

 

step up to NGK iridium

night vs. day

 

NGK coppers FTW

 

yea i got the NGK platinums in there as well. my car only got 40k on it so when i took the originals out i thought they would be pretty clean......man was i wrong......

 

yeah, wow, that looks damn similar to mine! mine were a little darker but they were also the bosch platnums so they had a different tip too. but yeah, hopefuly you found yours to be as good as mine.

 

Isnt that pic the look over a plug thats wearing normally? Looks fine to me. lol. I mean, yea, I guess they needed replacing but it wasnt an emergency.

 

yeah, with normal wear thats what they are gonna end up looking like but i had two different types of plugs. on the lazer the tip was actual warn down to almost nothing and on the platnum plus' they were solid black, gaps were f'd up and one was almost warn all the way back to the plug lol. oh and oil on one

 

Since they're so easy to change, I just run the coppers. $1.99 each or less Vs. $8.75 or more for iridium or platinum. I feel better changing them out every 25k.

 

^^Is that the downside to coppers? You have to change them more often?

 

 

yep. that and they dont stand up to the heat like the platnums or lazers. prolly less that a 30000 mile life on coppers, 40-60000 on platnums, n 100 on the lazers. lazers have the highest heat ratting and wont trip sensors if ya leave um in for a long time. but if your changen um all the time no biggie...

 

Platinum > platnum
Laser > lazer

2 tripping sensors.

 

sorry, if its not life or death i tend to not care how the heck i spell stuff... everyone knows what im talken about so i dun care.

 

.............

 

all the spark plug info you need to know to analyze them:
http://www.gnttype.org/techarea/engine/plugs.html

 

Spark plugs are overrated.

 

they are one of the best ways to analyze your engine's health

 

That’s also why I use coppers, 30k, you get to see how she’s doing more often.

 

IMO, if my car is running/starting fine no problem. On my 97 I ran the original plugs to 100k, and changed my oil every 3500 miles. After 100k my interval was going to be plugs @ 50k, oil every 5k miles, but I sold it.

For my 03, I'm changing my plugs evey 50k and oil every 5k (due to the oil burning issue) for as long as I own it.

Btw, I use NGK coppers and either Castrol, Pennzoil or Valvoline 5w-30 oil.

 

I know I stated in one of the threads, that I found out that the Platinums can stand out better than the coppers and the others Iriduims. The platinums have better gas mileage and some performance and better start-ups. I had the NGK Iridums and had them in for, 4 weeks and changed them to OEM platinums. Because the car, warmed up as soon as I started the car. The plugs can take stand up to extreme heat. I had to wait atleast 45sec to a min to warm it up and my start-ups were kind of late by a sec or two. The WOT launch was very late and I lost some low-end power.

 

Wow i am running coppers but im boosted.

 

you might be better off with the platinums then. they are build to withstand the high heat levels and if your boosten youve gotta be dumpen tons of fuel in there n i bet your prolly runnen rich arent ya. less ya got it tuned to those plugs maybe... just a thought...

 

. .. . . . . .

 

lollers.

 

Iridium baby!!