Drilling and indexing Sparkplugs
muffins
Regular
This is an article i did a while back and i gotta say one of the cheapest and neatest little things you can do to gain some power is to index your plugs. This moves the flame front of the plug inline with the incoming gases and aids in better combustion.
1.Select new plugs for your car. Another tip. For all the hype, platinum plugs with a bazillion cool little electrodes are expensive junk. Platinum plugs are designed to last longer and be consistent for smog control, not perform better. You get best performance with the cheap 99 cent copper plugs properly installed, and replaced or reconditioned about every 20,000 miles. An efficient engine pollutes less, and uses less gas, so the old method is actually more environmentally sound, but it requires owner responsibility thus platinum plugs were developed because people as a rule abuse their cars when it comes to maintenance.
2. Now that you have a very efficient set of plugs you need to install them correctly. Most professional mechanics don't bother to do this either, but you will be glad you did. Saving money at the parts store on high end plugs, and saving fuel at the same time is well worth the extra few minutes of effort. With a permanent marker or some kind of scoring tool (the tip of the 1/16" drill bit works well) mark the position where the outer electrode connects to the base of the plug on the side of the plug where you can see the mark from the top when installed in the head of the engine. When you put the plug in you want your mark to face away from the center of the combustion chamber. The rationale for this is that if the back of the electrode is facing into the combustion chamber your spark is directed toward the outer wall of he cylinder, and a lot of the spark is wasted. You want the spark directed into the middle of the combustion chamber where all the air/fuel mix is. Think about trying to start a fire with a match, but you can't get close enough to the fuel to light it. Put the spark closer to the fuel, and you burn it more completely. This is called indexing, and a good parts store will sell indexing washers for doing just this. Don't use a washer on every plug. first try one plug in the first hole and if it lines up fairly well on it's own your done, if it doesn't line up try it in another hole till it fits in line. You usually only have to use 1 or 2 washers on a V-8. Sometimes you will get all 4 to line up without a washer at all on a 4 cylinder. Note that the washers are all different thicknesses, and are marked in degrees of offset. So if you have one hole that is consistently 90 deg. off use a 90 deg. washer to line it up.
So give it a shot and enjoy the little increase in power and fuel economy
1.Select new plugs for your car. Another tip. For all the hype, platinum plugs with a bazillion cool little electrodes are expensive junk. Platinum plugs are designed to last longer and be consistent for smog control, not perform better. You get best performance with the cheap 99 cent copper plugs properly installed, and replaced or reconditioned about every 20,000 miles. An efficient engine pollutes less, and uses less gas, so the old method is actually more environmentally sound, but it requires owner responsibility thus platinum plugs were developed because people as a rule abuse their cars when it comes to maintenance.
2. Now that you have a very efficient set of plugs you need to install them correctly. Most professional mechanics don't bother to do this either, but you will be glad you did. Saving money at the parts store on high end plugs, and saving fuel at the same time is well worth the extra few minutes of effort. With a permanent marker or some kind of scoring tool (the tip of the 1/16" drill bit works well) mark the position where the outer electrode connects to the base of the plug on the side of the plug where you can see the mark from the top when installed in the head of the engine. When you put the plug in you want your mark to face away from the center of the combustion chamber. The rationale for this is that if the back of the electrode is facing into the combustion chamber your spark is directed toward the outer wall of he cylinder, and a lot of the spark is wasted. You want the spark directed into the middle of the combustion chamber where all the air/fuel mix is. Think about trying to start a fire with a match, but you can't get close enough to the fuel to light it. Put the spark closer to the fuel, and you burn it more completely. This is called indexing, and a good parts store will sell indexing washers for doing just this. Don't use a washer on every plug. first try one plug in the first hole and if it lines up fairly well on it's own your done, if it doesn't line up try it in another hole till it fits in line. You usually only have to use 1 or 2 washers on a V-8. Sometimes you will get all 4 to line up without a washer at all on a 4 cylinder. Note that the washers are all different thicknesses, and are marked in degrees of offset. So if you have one hole that is consistently 90 deg. off use a 90 deg. washer to line it up.
So give it a shot and enjoy the little increase in power and fuel economy
Comments
I'd go index my plug...but my only vehicle at this time is a 1 cylinder 2stroke dirtbike. And the plug is in the top center of the head
Index it to face the intake
I used to do it on my dirt bikes,lawnmower whatever.You can get shims here.
http://www.summitracing.com/search/brand/CSR-Performance/Product-Line/CSR-Spark-Plug-Indexing-Washers/?autoview=SKU