Spark Plugs

Anyone try the E3, iridium, or Bosch Platinum+4 plugs? Which is better if any?

Anyone try the E3, iridium, or Bosch Platinum+4 plugs? Which is better if any?

BASIC electrical theory:

Electricity travels the path of least resistance. Electricity will not flow across 2, 3, or 4 electrodes, when bridging the gap, at the same time. The only POSSIBLE advantage multiple electrode plugs give you is longer life. Trust me, don't you think the professional racing community would of grabbed onto the idea of multiple electrodes long before Bosch if it actually was a coherent thought?

NGK Laser Iridiums, Autolite XP Iridiums, and Silverstone plugs are about the only plugs worth getting in terms of performance per dollar.

The point is not that it has 2-4 points to fire against, the point is that traditinoal spark plugs put a piece of metal in front of the spark blocking its access to the piston. The +2 and +4 put the spark open directly at the pistion where you want the fire. Imagine total darkness and turn a flash light on pointing it at what you want to see, now put your hand one foot in front of the beam blocking its direct path. Yes, there will be some light getting at the item you want to see, but it will be better lit if you move your hand. The +2 and +4 is like removing your hand, traditinoal plugs are like when your hand is in front of the flash light. For the E3 plug, it directs a flattened sphere of spark fire above the plug in a "Glowing" effect down at the piston.

The point is not having mutiple places for the spark to hit, but having the spark open directly at the piston so it does not need to go around in a half circle to get to where it needs to fire.

Brisk performs what you are stating much better than Bosch and E3 do it and guess what, they still don't offer any actual gains:

http://www.tuninglinx.com/assets/images/img-brisk-premium-2.jpg

Notice no eclipsing for maximum spark exposure, however, due to the design of these plugs, they have a much shorter life span than the traditional plug.

The age old racer's tricks are the only proven "technology" in spark plugs, fine wire and shaved electrodes.

Anyone try the E3. They look like they might help.

Waste of money. With the extra electrodes, they actually end up covering up more of the spark than traditional single electrode spark plugs. Look at the design of most heads and how the spark plug goes in. The side of the spark plug is where the ignition starts, not at the top. No real performance gains. Just like when the notorious Splitfire plugs came out that were supposed to greatly increase performance. Funny how you don't hear much about them anymore. Especially when talking about performance. They even had to change their advertising after government investigations found they couldn't produce the results they claimed. Save your money and just buy tradition style platinum plugs.

never use s[lit fires they will burn the top of the piston and i agree with everyone who says to stick with traditional style platinum plugs

Little to no gain in real world conditions. Unless your hardcore racing and want every edge you can get its a waste of money. At least its only 4 though so it wont hurt too bad to live and learn.

The +4's aren't even a consideration in the "hardcore racing" arena. They are just a gimmick and nothing more. Sure they last longer due to the 4 different points for the spark to travel, but they offer absolutly no performance increase.

The only spark plugs i've known to be any better than another are the iridum one only because of there low ignite temp making them more efficient. probably still wouldn't notice much unless you have a 250+hp vehicle. I personally use champion plugs on all my cars. Oh actually there's another difference between them, The REEEAlly cheap ones like autolite will break apart.

Speaking of which, i never got a chance to yet but has anyone checked to see if the stock gap is accurate from the dealers? EVERY car i've ever owned used, people just throw them in the way they are and even if they do gap them, after driving around a while them getting hot, the gap does change. I've been meaning to check and see if this had any role with that knocking so many of us have heard.

Ditto, I'm a big Champion fan, too. Inexpensive and effective. I can't help but giggle a bit anytime some ricer comes into my AutoZone and insists on the gimmick plugs. But hey, if they want to spend their money at my store, more power to them ;) As a rule though, I ALWAYS write the gap on the box if it's in the computer. Now if the customer uses the info is beyond me, but I figure it's helpful of me either way ;)

Chanda

We have a 2.0 cvt with 48k on it. The mechanic at the dealer has informed me that the plugs in the car are only good for 30,000 miles and no other plugs should be used. I asked about putting platinums in and they said original equipment plugs are required. ?????? and now they are rebuilding my motor. My 2000 van went 163000 miles on its original plugs and the caliber can,t do more than 30000 miles whats wrong with this picture??

Your van is probably overdue for a plug change by 60,000 miles, but its really not that big of a deal. Your fuel economy may suffer but thats about it. The caliber i believe uses traditional plugs rather than platinum core and thats why it has short plug change intervals. Be careful though.. it sounds like they are trying to blame your engine problem on your overdue plug change. Im curious if you happen to have any pictures of the piston damage. Ill bet it was pinging over a long period of time, as many of the early build date cars did. You also complained of poor fuel economy which is a good symptom of a real problem as well.

My 2000 van went 163000 miles on its original plugs

Just because you drove it that long on the original plugs doesn't mean it was good for the van. They should be changed at least every 60K for best performance. My '93 S-10 had a plug foul at 70K miles and caused a misfire which damaged the cylinder and made the motor start burning oil. For the price of spark plugs, it doesn't hurt to change them every 30K and it will keep your motor running good and keep the gas mileage good.

Some vehicles call for 100,000mile plug change intervals. I have an 97 astro that uses platinum plugs with the 100,000mile life span. I picked it up with 139,000 miles on it and the previous owner said he had the plugs changed at 90,000miles but i changed them again anyway lol. I just cant let it go that long.

Well, platinum plugs are different from the standard copper core plugs used on the Caliber.

Yeah thats what i was saying before... The platinum plugs cost quite a bit more too and in the end unless your paying labor to have them changed they cost about the same over 100,000 miles.

van runs 12.3 to 13.3 mpg all the time never had an issue 318 is a great mopar motor. ok now back to the caliber yes it pinged and yes bad gas mileage since we got it. they did some computer update a while back and the pinging went away but the mpg still sucked. like I said best mpg ever 24.5 mpg. normal mpg 22 this time 18.2 mpg 18.4mpg. we check the mpg every time we fill up. and the dealer knows about the mpg problem the service mgr took our car home and drove it couple of days he avg 19 mpg.

Maybe your expectations regarding mpg were to high.
The ratings have changed as the EPA finally figured out
their figures were generally pie in the sky.
Go to the EPAs new formula website and see
the new MPG figures.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/sbs.htm

By the way I don't see the Caliber as a commercial vehicle
in your type of usage.
I wonder if you have been up front with your dealership
regarding your particular usage.

van runs 12.3 to 13.3 mpg all the time never had an issue 318 is a great mopar motor. ok now back to the caliber yes it pinged and yes bad gas mileage since we got it. they did some computer update a while back and the pinging went away but the mpg still sucked. like I said best mpg ever 24.5 mpg. normal mpg 22 this time 18.2 mpg 18.4mpg. we check the mpg every time we fill up. and the dealer knows about the mpg problem the service mgr took our car home and drove it couple of days he avg 19 mpg.

For a delivery vehicle, probably doing a lot of short trips in city driving, those aren't bad mpg numbers. Chances are it's been used that way the entire life of the car, so it hasn't seen an easy life.

We have a 2.0 cvt with 48k on it. The mechanic at the dealer has informed me that the plugs in the car are only good for 30,000 miles and no other plugs should be used. I asked about putting platinums in and they said original equipment plugs are required. ?????? and now they are rebuilding my motor. My 2000 van went 163000 miles on its original plugs and the caliber can,t do more than 30000 miles whats wrong with this picture??

Technicially unless the plug has eroded away to nothing, you can run over 100,000 miles on a plug. Unless you have platnum plugs it is recommened by all manufactures to replace the plug abot 30k miles. They will say the same for the Van.

All dealerships will recommend what the manufactuer put in the car. IF it came with platnum, they will say to reinstall platnum, if it came with standard copper they will say to reinstall it with copper. This is common practice.

van runs 12.3 to 13.3 mpg all the time never had an issue 318 is a great mopar motor. ok now back to the caliber yes it pinged and yes bad gas mileage since we got it. they did some computer update a while back and the pinging went away but the mpg still sucked. like I said best mpg ever 24.5 mpg. normal mpg 22 this time 18.2 mpg 18.4mpg. we check the mpg every time we fill up. and the dealer knows about the mpg problem the service mgr took our car home and drove it couple of days he avg 19 mpg.

I average 17 mpg city, and 22-24 highway, Caliber R/T AWD

Ayone watch horse power on Spike TV? They did a spark plug test on a V8. They did not give all the data, but after attaching the plugs into a chamber that shows the spark, they decided to show us the results of testing 2 plugs. It looked like they tested Bosch +4 vs E-3.

Remember preformane mods have greater impact to bigger engines, and this was a V8. They found that the E-3 had about 8 more hp, and required less fuel. This test was done on a dyno and the oil and water temps were the same.

Personally I have tested Stock, vs E-3 vs Bosch +4 on the R/T Caliber and found no change to performance and gas milage. My performance test was a belltech performance comptuer doing 0-60 tests.

With the dyno they have more precise measuring abilities that are more accurate than I can do.

I am not sure what to think about this, but I did find it interesting.

Looking at the Horsepower TV episode listing, they talk about doing the spark plug test on the ZZ-4 motor, but when they list the "sponsor" for the show they only list the E3 plugs, which means, they were probably paid to show the E3 plugs making more power. Don't think they offer unbiased opinions about parts used on those shows.

So I have 2 questions...

1. What are the original plugs in the Caliber (non SRT)? I have a Caliber R/T if that makes any difference (shouldn't). Some have had Champion, while others have had NGK.

2. Besides the OEM plug, what is the best plug to get?

I pulled NGK out of mine and put in NGK ZFR4F-11 / 4043 (Stock number / part number). They are one step hotter and cleaned the plugs alot better than the factory ones. As long as it is as easy as it is to change our spark plugs, I will never go to platinum or iridium or ytridium or any other funky named metal, because out of commonly had plugs, copper provides us with the highest electrical conductivity or "more spark". No funky electrode designs need apply.

Copper 595.8 1/mohm-cm
Platinum 94.34 1/mohm-cm
Iridium 188.679 1/mohm-cm

Then we have silver.. with 630 1/mohm-cm conductivity. 20.3 ksi tensile strength (Copper has 44 ksi, both of these figures are, I believe, before they are fully hardened). So even though there are silver-based spark plugs on the market (Silverstones), they are far more prone to gap errosion than copper and should be checked/replaced at an even shorter interval than copper (Which is 15,000 miles BTW).

Copper 595.8 1/mohm-cm
Platinum 94.34 1/mohm-cm
Iridium 188.679 1/mohm-cm

What does the mohm mean? Is it Mega ohms. If so wouldn't the Iridium plugs offer less resistance than the copper ones.

Anyone try the other new hyped plugs, Plasma Star?
They are supposed to be alot hotter than standard plugs.
I checked out their site and they specifically recommend that high compression engines do not use their plugs. (i.e. turbo, supercharged)

Anyone see the show Horsepower did with a V8 showing the E3 produced slightly more hp?