Black plugs?

[phantam]

I noticed when i was swapping my oem plugs for the new ix iridiums that 2 of the plugs were blackish and the other two were startng to turn black, my buddy that did the same swap saw a little blackening but not much at all, mine looks like somethings wrong what could it be? Running too rich? bad o2 sensor? bad maf?

[beppomarx]

hmm a black plug huh.....

that means that carbon is building up on the plug. is it ALL black or just teh ground or just the electrode or the outer thread part is black?

if you could show a pic it would be good but if its really black you may be running too cold of a plug- a hotter one will burn off that black deposit better. are you running OEM grade plugs or did you go colder for nitrous or something?

if the electrode and ground are not black then you should be fine though...

[phantam]

the threading was slightly blackened on 1 and on the ceramic part. They were standard oem plugs i havent taken out the new ixiridiums to check them yet but maybe i should but its only been a week not much time for it to build up

[beppomarx]

a little black is just fine, i wouldnt worry about it unless youve got a lot of buildup. that thin layer of black carbon dust is to be expected.

[ChickenPoop]

I don't think I've ever pulled out oem plugs from any car I've owned without at least a light dusting of carbon... I'm with Beppomarx as long as your not getting big chunks of carbon building up it should be a problem.
How do you like those NGK Iridium IX's? Trying to decide between those and the Nology's with the silver center electrodes (if they make them to fit the Accent, havent called yet). Their both the same price at Summit Racing.

[beppomarx]

expensive ass plugs....

v-powers are $1.97 and i just change them every 25,000 and they rock. plus id rather pull them anyways every 12,000 or so just to check up on things, i replace them every othr inspection. i i tried to get irridiums or whatever to last their supposed 100,000mile lifespan then i would be retorqueing them 10 times in their life, may cause the crush gasket washers to leak after that much reuse.

plus with me changing the plus with brand new ones 4 times for 100,000 miles its a total of $32. youre probably paying almost that much for a single set and im getting a new set more often.

ill stick with vpowers theyv never let me down and i noticed a good improvement when i replacd the stock setup with v-powers and KORE wires, thats my standpoint . plus ive never seen anything about the precious metal plugs giving any benefit except less electrode and ground errosion. maybe im old school (and im only 22 lol) but i just feel changing plugs for a brand new set is a good piece of mind.

[phantam]

I love them, alot better throttle response and very nice smooth idle. Alot better than the oem plugs i personal love thema nd so does my buddy that bought them they work great with the mangecore wires our cars are alot more smoother at idle.

As a note there are 2 iridiums plugs from ngk depending on your car usage both are awesome plugs there better than the platinums in both cases supposedly

1: IX Iridium - Cheaper around 6$ will offer the best performance of all the plugs available however i was warned that this performance comes at a cost of lifetime of onloy around 40000miles

2: Iridium - About same price as platinum 12-13$ will offer slightly less performance than the IX series but will last over 130000 miles

i was informed of this by NGK themselves also ngk told me that there wires and magnecore wires show about equal results.

Also to note iridium is a higher class plug than platinum and the rest iridium is the hardest most condocutive material used in spark plug creation, thats the reason the electrode is able to be so small its a "superfine electrode"