Quoted From Chris95118:
I was thumbing through my car repair manual and looked up the spark plug gap the manual said “check emissions sticker on inside of hood.”
I did that.The emissions sticker says spark plug gap 1.1mm (0, -0.1) (note: 1 inch = 25.4mm)
1.1mm = 0.04331 inches
1.0mm = 0.03937 inchesThe way I read it:
1.1mm is the upper limit for the gap can wear to
and
1.0mm is what the plugs should be gapped to when they are installed.
(the NGK v-power plugs came pre-gapped to 0.044 which is already beyond 1.1mm, 0.04331 inches upper limit)Long story short.
-Read the *&$# manual.
-Don’t trust the gap the plugs come with to be correct for your application.
-Funny thing is: I had my plug gapping tool marked at 0.040 which I thought was for a car I no longer have. But, I guess I marked it for my CRX at some point.I gapped the plugs to 0.040 and the engine is idling correctly again. (no work on engine harness)
Take Care,
Chris
(There still might be an intermittent electrical problem floating around. Only time and miles will tell.)
Honestly I disagree with this. I’ve installed countless NGK plugs without gapping them without incident. I’ve actually checked them out of the box and they were very close to the 1.1mm/ .44 thousands where it didn’t make a difference and I did this enough to give up checking after a while which brought me to the conclusion that if the electrode wasn’t bent to just install them into the engine.
If you pulled the wires out of the back of the connector for the IAC this could be the source of the problem. Many times all you need do is tap on it with a screwdriver handle and listen to the idle, if the idle changes it could indicate the IAC is sticking or not operating correctly. Also with an engine swap you need to be sure that you have the right connector plugged into the right place, I believe on that model the connector for the IAC and the temp sensor are the same, the way I tell what goes were is to look at the color of the connectors, the green connector goes to the green sensor.
Changing cams and increasing compression are pretty major modifications actually. The engine was designed and programed to run on the stock cams at the stock compression ratio, if you change the engine or modify it it’s a good idea to at least look at the fuel map to see if it’s performing within spec if not you may experience performance issues, this would best be done on a chassis dynamometer BTW. These days performance modification is not a ‘bolt on’ affair, you also have to consider what the computer wants to do and alter it if need be to accommodate any modifications you make.