Today since it was nice and warm outside I pulled all my spark plugs (Autolite platinum) to have a peek. It turns out that my last plug I pulled (the one closest to the brake master cylinder) was finger tight inside of the engine. Hmm. Maybe this will explain why my car has been running not so hot at the track. To top that off of how loose it was, there was carbon all around the injector coil wire and around the white porcelin part of the spark plug above the threads.

This may very well be my problem in why my trap MPH was sub 90 MPH. Over time the spark plug(s) probably worked itself looser and looser, particularly when I had those vibration prone place racing mounts in place. This makes me wonder if I may have problems similar to what BriGuyMax is experiencing. He had a carbon fouled plug and traced it to a sticking injector.

I guess since I got the plugs out I may as well spend the cash and buy the OEM NGK's. Good lord these are expensive. Then, I will use a torque wrench to put the back in. The FSM says 14-22 ft lbs. We'll see what happens.

 

Make sure you torque it right. You dont wanna do like that guy on here who set it for inches instead of pounds and broke them off inside.

SuDZ

 

I guess it's not ALL Nissan's fault huh Eric? Gotta rib ya' sometimes.

 

While we are on spark plugs, if I am now running a Y pipe and UR Pulleys, and cone filter should I change the gap on my plugs? When I did it originally I was still stock. I know I saw something before that said when HP is changed plugs should be gapped accordingly. Where should it be gapped to now?

SuDZ

 

No. All bolts-ons(in the scope of this site), will not require a gap adjustment unless it's NOS, SC or turbo related.

 

Excellent thanks.

SuDZ

 

Order those babies from Courtesy. I know there's another dealer that sells them a bit cheaper. Anyone know which dealer it is?

 

I got them for $9 a piece. Good deal?

 

Why not order them from that dealer in Louisiana? Their discount is double that of that dealer in Texas. Plus I hear you don't get ripped-off either with crazy shipping prices.

 

OK I bought 6 plugs for $9 a piece. I got the "standard" ones (pn with a 5 in it). Anyway, I rode my Honda bike to the nissan dealers today. As I was stopped at a stop light that was maybe 1/8 mile away, the light turned green. I decided to have some fun, so I gunned her up and popped a mini wheelie. I slowed, and then turned into the dealers. As I was pullin in there was a buncha people all staring at me thru the large show room and service windows. I was like wow, i knew people usually looked at bikes but not this hard. I turn my head, and I see theres a police officer with full lights on right behnd me. Woops. I guess he noticed my little stunt. He tells me to go over to his car, and he talks to me. He says he saw me accelerate really quickly and the speed limit was 55. I told him that I accelerated quickly but did not speed. He then tells me "If you want to argue, I'll write you a ticket then you can tell that to the judge, or if you want to just hear me out, I'll let you go." So naturally I chose the latter. Surprisingly he does not even ask for my license to see if I even have a biker's license.

So as I walk in, I made a complete idiot out of myself and the girl at the cashier counter is pretty cute too. I buy the plugs and go home. After I put the plugs in, I made sure I used torque wrench and torqued them all uniformly to 20 ft lbs. They wont be vibratin out now! Those NGK plugs look alot better then the Autolites. The double tipped platinum was very evident on the NGKs. I get in my car and warm it up, then I nailed the gas a few times. One thing I did wrong was that I rode my sport bike around all day. The car just felt slow after riding a bike. So, I honestly could not tell whether or not the car got any faster. I'm sure it did though, as that finger tight spark plug certainly lowered the compression in that cylinder as shown by carbon on the top of the spark plug. I'm almost certain this is why I was running sub 90 MPH speeds. That and possibly the dirty MAF. I wont be running at the track until I get more of the motor mounts polyurethaned and my Y pipe fixed. We'll see what happens.

 

That's a very good deal especially when I've seen them for $24 a piece.

 

nissan-accessories.comThey have a tune-up kit (NGK plugs, fuel filter, oil filter, air filter) for $70.28 shipped.

 

I just paid $11 each from a local place. Finished putting them in about 20 minutes ago, took a test ride. Aahh ... new plugs! I was a bit shy of 60k on them, but the engine was stumbling. The gap really opens up when they get that old.

 

yes that was a good deal..

 

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......non recommended plugs and you wonder why your car runs badly. No offense, but when you use cheap stuff, the chances are you're going to have trouble.

Anyway, it's good that you replaced them. Good luck at the track next time. Be good to your max.

 

Minor rant:
I just don't get it about NGKs being expensive. Stop limiting your
thinking to the immediate cash outlay. Appreciate the fact that they will last for a guarrantied 60 freaking thousand miles! On the 5th gen, they'll go 100 thousand. That's a damn long time. Spread the cost out over time, and it may turn out cheaper than the coppers that you would have to replace 3 sets before that 1 set of NGKs went bad.

:end minor rant:

It's like I find it funny seeing people buying a $60,000 BMW, and you see a $50 radio shack radar detector mounted on the windshield Makes me laugh sometimes

DW

 

Anyone tried the NGK V-power plugs? I never have been to fond of platinum. I think copper-core's will give a hotter spark with a stock ignition. They might wear down a bit too quick with a CDI though. I'm running them right now. Seem to work well. Not sure if there was a power gain or not. I know my brother noticed a slight difference when he went from platinum to the old copper-cores.

Gene

 

If you go to copper, be prepared to change the plugs often. In my last car, a gen III supra turbo, I put coppers in even though they specified plats. My car was a monster for 10,000 miles, then the plugs were toast. That car had a distributorless ignition, no cap an rotor, not quite the DIS the maxima has. I imagine that the DIS in the Maxima would roast those coppers real quick.

DW

 

Overall, the spark plug issue is good dialog. Now we know for sure to use the stock NGK's.

 

I have these now but have not put them in. For one thing, you cant beat the price. $1.20 a plug

 

1.20 a plug? Are you sure they're V-powers? That's a nice price. I think I paid 5 or 6 a plug. A dollar something is what I paid for the regular NGKs I think. I didn't like them.

I guess as far as how long they last, it's just preference. Kinda like going with Z rated tires vs H rated or so. You'll replace the Zs a lot more often, but the performance is there. What are you willing to sacrifice for the extra edge? My edge picked me up a nice dodge(Ram?) truck this morning. One more kill.

Gene

 

Z,W,or V rated tire can last just as long or longer as an H-rated tire. The tire's wear rating is the key indicator. My car has 127K miles, I've had only 2 sets of W rated tires for about 100,000 miles, Pirelli P7000SS and Kumho ECSTA's

DW

 

Yeah, I guess you're right there. But you got the point, right? You pay to play.

Gene

 

I'm never using anything except copper $1 plugs ever again.... they give more performance (not really measurable, but copper conducts better) and they cost like $6 for all the plugs. So what if I have to change them every 15K miles... its easy to do and I'm saving money... but if people feel better from buying platinum plugs and spending a lot more then that's fine with me