BurbMan
Jan 17, 2016Explorer II
Calling All Spark Plug Experts, Opinions on these pics.
Seemed like not too long ago I changed the plugs in the burb. Got an 02 Grand Prix GTP as a daily driver so the truck sits during the week now.
Took it out the other day and it ran terrible, then the check engine light came on. A scan indicated misfire in #6, and also #5 to a lesser extent, so plugs and wires seemed the place to start. Truck has 170k on it now, my records show that plugs and wires were last changed in Jan of 2013 at 140k miles, so almost exactly 3 yrs and 30k miles on the plugs. Here are some pics and bear in mind that these plugs are OEM iridium and are supposed be good for 75k miles.
Truck here is a 2001, engine is the 8.1L big block.
A little disturbing to see pieces of insulator material flaked off of #1 plug. Hopefully they went out the exhaust valve without causing too much damage.
Also #4 plug is really clogged up with some kind of white stuff, not sure what that is....
NOTE that there was NO OIL on any of the plugs, the look dark in the pic due to the camera angle.
So these are the OEM spec 41-983 plugs gapped at factory spec .060. I have read some places on the net of using a cooler plug like a 41-993 gapped at .045, but others have reported issues with that.
All comments welcome.
Took it out the other day and it ran terrible, then the check engine light came on. A scan indicated misfire in #6, and also #5 to a lesser extent, so plugs and wires seemed the place to start. Truck has 170k on it now, my records show that plugs and wires were last changed in Jan of 2013 at 140k miles, so almost exactly 3 yrs and 30k miles on the plugs. Here are some pics and bear in mind that these plugs are OEM iridium and are supposed be good for 75k miles.
Truck here is a 2001, engine is the 8.1L big block.
A little disturbing to see pieces of insulator material flaked off of #1 plug. Hopefully they went out the exhaust valve without causing too much damage.
Also #4 plug is really clogged up with some kind of white stuff, not sure what that is....
NOTE that there was NO OIL on any of the plugs, the look dark in the pic due to the camera angle.
So these are the OEM spec 41-983 plugs gapped at factory spec .060. I have read some places on the net of using a cooler plug like a 41-993 gapped at .045, but others have reported issues with that.
All comments welcome.