Quote:
Originally Posted by calicrewchief
$40 a piece is pretty steep for spark plugs. Rice, you would probably know more than anyone else, but are there ways of maintaining spark plugs to extend their life range? I don't know if it's a stupid question or not. I have seen old spark plugs refurbishers. If a plug is fouled, is it completely junk?
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I know more about plugs than I care to remember but I will say this, rotaries in particular have a few modes of fouling, some are not as obvious as others and the one that cannot be rectified ever is when the plug gets wet for an extended period, you can heat it up with a gas torch and sand blast it and do what ever you like but that plug will be fucked and technically fouled for life, it is then a bin job.
If the plug is only carbon fouled then not a problem, sand blasting in a proper plug cleaner and re gaping to specification will bring it to almost new condition.
The ghetto base alloy plug ground straps fatigue over time and these need to be binned before the used by date, I have seen these get bent onto the center electrode from combustion pressure in high HP turbo 2 rotors.
Best thing you can do to extend plug life is (any one or all of these things) water injection, right AFR mix at idle and cruise! (90+% of running conditions), CDI ignition system to prevent wet fouling (and throwing away $200 set of plugs!) have an engine that has compression! lol! this is common in aftermarket steel sealed shit boxes that have low compression ! and this means less heat on the plug at idle and cruise and forever problems with low plug life as a result of a lack of heat to burn off the fuel and carbon deposits (self cleaning). Less compression you have the more plug problems you have RE fouling.
Set the car up right, run the right parts and plugs will never be a problem again.............. I laugh very hard when I see cars that need "warm up plugs!" good set ups run 11 heat range from freezing to track and in daily applications not a problem.
I run R7420 in 11 heat range all round in mine, they work great, but dont try to run these with a HKS DLI or inductive lol, or a shit "tune" they will be a throw away item in a week of daily driving, hence my paragraphs above of a complete correct well developed set up.