SPARK PLUGS!

in my opinion E-3s are like split fires ( anyone remember them ) a waste of money. And yes I wasted money on them too . I run NGKs in everything but my lawn equipment for that stuff I run the cheapest plug availlible just not off brand.

My grandfather and I have generally used the AC Delco spark plugs for the Corvette and Trans Am. But those things are ridiculously expensive. For the mowers, unless its a built motor, I usually run whatever we have laying in the toolbox that fits and works.

I usually run Champion. Never had any luck with E3's, they never worked or spark shall I say. You can clean them with a sandblaster or steel shot but as long as you get all of the particles out of the plug, as mentioned before, you don't want to get that stuff in your engine. Which means if a plug is oil fouled, you dont want to use sand to clean it, a wire brush and a solvent is good enough. My Jeep I run AC Delco, because they always fire in the cold, and there the cheap one's too.

As for performance tips, I've worked on some pretty freaky engines, from a Briggs 2 hp flattie to a J100 Jet engine. A spark plug is like anything else, designed to do a certain job. If you understand that job you can improve it. With concideration on plug design. Certain plugs work better then others because of their design.

Start with the flathead design. Plug is usually placed between the piston and the valves. You want the fire to start at the plug and start moving to the piston for best advantage, the fire will fill the valve area first before the fire completly fills the piston area because the motion of the fuel air is being pushed buy the piston. knowing this you can take advantage of this. First the plug needs to be a standard plug with a J shaped electrode, which is why the Champion plug works best here. Next is to control the direction of the fire and this is done by indexing the plug for best results. Indexing is where when the plug is tight in the engine you know where the electrode is positioned. If the engine is together, to do this, all you have to do is use a marker to mark on the ceramic on the outside part so you can see it, where the electrode starts coming off the plug's casing, you place a mark on the ceramic. When tightening the plug you can see where the electrode is facing. You want the electrode to be blocking the valve area or where the electrode starts to come off the casing of the plug and the open end twards the piston. If needed use washers as shims to achieve this.

On an overhead valve engine, the plug is usually off to the side and ofcourse over the piston. Indexing would be the J shape electrode plug, you want the electrode's back side twards the cylinder wall so the fire comes out of the plug to the center of the cylinder chamber. An E3 plug would help here because an E3 plug has the C shape over the spark electrode to have the fire come out of the plug in 2 directions which is straight down from the plug and to the side of the plug to fill the chamber up with the fire.

That is the purpose of the ground electrode shape, the spark will spark where ever is least resistance but the fire is what you are controlling with the shape of the ground electrode.

So One more example would be a Hemi type engine or a 2 stroke engine where the plug is placed in the center or near the center. Best plug would be an aircraft type plug with 3 ground electrodes, or second choice an E3 plug because you want the fire to start going down. An aircraft type plug with 3 ground electrodes would come up the sides of the spark electrode and not cover the spark electrode, and indexing on this plug is not nessasary, and the fire will start from the spark electrode and move straight away from the plug to the piston. An E3 plug would need indexing with the back side of the ground electrode or the place where the ground electrode comes off the casing facing directly away from the exhaust valve because the exhaust valve area is first to leave the chamber and you want that to be burnt first so when the valve opens it is exiting burnt gas and the C shape ground electrode will also start the fire going down also to the piston. And a regular J shaped electrode you want the open end of the electrode twards the exhaust valve too.

This is somewhat of a science to take advantage of. As for horse power gains, it's barely worth mentioning but a more efficient engine is a stronger engine in it's own right.

I've read that heat ranges don't always cross over exactly between brands. I'm thinking that maybe that could explain some fouling issues with certain brands over others. Maybe somehow, the plugs that get fouled up are too cold for the application. For instance, some family members have had problems with champion spark plugs fouling in snowmobile engines back in the 80's, but not with NGK. I don't see how there could be that much difference between brands, especially known brands. Maybe if they would have tried one heat range hotter with champion, there wouldn't have been an issue.

mr.modified wrote:

I've read that heat ranges don't always cross over exactly between brands. I'm thinking that maybe that could explain some fouling issues with certain brands over others. Maybe somehow, the plugs that get fouled up are too cold for the application. For instance, some family members have had problems with champion spark plugs fouling in snowmobile engines back in the 80's, but not with NGK. I don't see how there could be that much difference between brands, especially known brands. Maybe if they would have tried one heat range hotter with champion, there wouldn't have been an issue.

That could be possible on the heat ranges but only to a certain point to where you could be able to tune the motor to fix it which would be part of the tune up itself.  I can't imagine the heat range be that far off to where the plug self destructs by gooing up. I have to believe that if my plug is fouling out, that there is something else wrong like too much gas or oil burning in the chamber. Plus the plug could just be bad right out of the box, that's happened to me too many times. I freak out when the cashier throws the box of plugs on the counter just to ring it up. I'm like, you know there made of glass, and their like what.