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Ok so I wanted to start a spark plug thread. It seems like there are lot of knowledgeable people here so I'm trying to round up all the info I can. From what I've gathered on my own (here and css) everyone has a preference to gap/type/materials. I'm hoping to resolve any future issues I might run into (such as Black Tara)
I have about 600 miles on the gen 3 crate motor. I was going to change or at least look at my stock Delco plugs at 1000 miles. ZZP sent me 6 Autolite Iridium XP's part# XP5263. Even though on their site these are for the 3800, after emailing back and forth. ZZP says they're ok to use in the LNF. However, they do prefer stock plugs gapped to .032
Im just curious to see what we've got for choices and why bother switching from factory plugs.
I don't know about a tuned turbo engine, but I'd stay with the AC Delco Iridium plugs, these little Trucklets are built around them.
I have tried several different brands in different types of electrode metals and ground post configurations , my little 2.2 didn't like it one bit!
I'm at 200,000 miles on my '03 Sunfire GT and 192,000 miles on my HHR, both 2.2 n/a Ecotec engines.
With all the crazy stuff that was going on with mine I switched plugs 4 times in 1500 miles on my new ZZP Gen 3 turbo motor. The factory stock AC/Delco plugs work the best for sure!!
I put those autolites in that came in zzp's turbo kit. I ended up swapping them out for the delco's but had to gap them up to .020 to make the setup happy.
@ Mississippi - Wow. .012 is a pretty substantial difference from factory. Any particular reasons for tighter gap? I've got a whole mess of questions for you because our setups are so similar. I'll start up a thread soon, give it a glance. Oh, did your intake mount work out?
Initial tuning after the turbo swap I had a giant hesitation as the turbo spooled and then what felt like missing and sputtering at full boost. Several threads on the forums talked about spark blowout and tightening the gap on the plugs, so I tried it and experienced an improvement. Never question a simple fix. Oh, and the intake mount worked great! Should have been included in the kit. Thanks
Last edited by mississippisunburst; 09-24-2015 at 06:13 PM.
Looks like some time has passed since this thread was touched. There’s a bit of variance in thought process here, and I’d like to revisit this, and see what the consensus is on the gapping.
I just got the correct ones, and since the Iridium NGKs now have about 50k on them from the replacement date, I think it’s a good opportunity to replace them with the correct brand.
Napa gave me .040 as the gap, AutoZone gave me .042, and the threads here have a whole bunch of numbers 🤔
Has anyone figured out what the best gapping is for 2.2L ?
07-22-2015, 06:24 PM
