Spark Plug Install Instructions

Very much so. Bloody knuckles and steeming head.

It's more a matter of patience than skill. There was a time when I thought about calling a tow truck and admitting defeat. It's the slow progress and awkward positions.

^ though the pride from working on your own ride pays off with patience.. and of course cheaper

I changed the plugs about 2 weeks before my wedding and by the end of the reception the scabs on my knuckles had broken open again from all the handshaking.

 

The job was a real pain but definitely worth it

After having my plugs replaced at the dealer, the idel pulley for my A/c came loose and melted a hole in the timing belt cover. Do you remove this belt when putting in new plugs? I am trying to figure out if the dealer failed to tighten the nut or if I just had bad luck.

After having my plugs replaced at the dealer, the idel pulley for my A/c came loose and melted a hole in the timing belt cover. Do you remove this belt when putting in new plugs? I am trying to figure out if the dealer failed to tighten the nut or if I just had bad luck.

 

Seems weird.. I just did plugs, and only took out battery & air intake/maf air pipe/hose.

For those of you that had plugs that felt like they were cross-threaded, how hard were they to remove? I've got two plugs that turn abou1/4-1/2 a turn, and then get really hard to turn. I'm too chicken to turn them any further, I don't want to break the plugs. I turned them out as far as I felt I could, shot them with PB Blaster, and let them sit for a while. Even that didn't help.

 

Any ideas or advice?

I just did plugs for the 2nd time about a month ago. A couple of them got pretty hard to turn for a bit, but they did come out. Not sure exactly how hard "really hard" is for you.

 

For me, I definitely couldn't turn them by hand (trying to turn the extension on the socket). Needed the ratchet for a bit after loosening them. Worked out ok. Not saying yours aren't cross-threaded...

I doubt that they are truly cross threaded, but I guess I'm wondering if they are just horribly corroded. The car has 98k on it right now, I haven't had it very long, and I don't have maintenance information from before my ownership. I don't think they would be original, but they may have been in there for a while!

 

Thanks!

I had one like that as well. I just worked it back and forth LIGHTLY and it came out. It was just the anti-seize gumming up.

 

I will admit my heart sunk deep as soon as I thought it was cross threaded

Attached are pics of my sparkplug toolkit(purchased for changing plugs in my 93 RX7 TT).It is hard to do real damage with the short ratchet,unless you are an 800lb gorilla,and it works well in tight spots.

I changed my plugs yesterday( 2006 Legacy Wagon NA,purchased 10 days ago),old ones look original NGK platinum,I replaced with NGK Irridium IX.

 

As per the originator of this thread--must use anti sieze on the way in.

I've just finished doing my 2nd set of plugs, and IIRC, OEM didn't have anti-seize. And I certainly didn't put any on set #2. It came out just fine after approx 32-34k. Then again, no salt in CA may have something to do with it?

Attached are pics of my sparkplug toolkit(purchased for changing plugs in my 93 RX7 TT).It is hard to do real damage with the short ratchet,unless you are an 800lb gorilla,and it works well in tight spots.

I changed my plugs yesterday( 2006 Legacy Wagon NA,purchased 10 days ago),old ones look original NGK platinum,I replaced with NGK Irridium IX.

 

As per the originator of this thread--must use anti sieze on the way in.

 

 

I have all those tools in that pic. Plan on doing the plugs very soon. Thanks for the suggestion of tool choice.

First, let me add my thanks to BoxerGT2.5 for starting this off. A few months back I decided that I should replace my turbo with a new BNR EVO 16G. It is still sitting in the box and as is often the case, one thing leads to another and now I have a whole list of things that I'll be doing along with the turbo. The main thing for the purposes of this thread being changing my catted UP for an STi. This will require a new tune and at this point I'm planning on having a dyno pro tune. Since my plugs will be approaching 50k miles at that point and tuners like to have fresh plugs that lead me here. My car is a DD and I'll be going with a relatively conservative tune but don't want to waste everything the turbo has to offer when I need a little something extra than my normal relatively conservative driving style.

 

I'm leaning toward the one step colder plugs. One of the questions raised by my reading through this thread is at what point in my mods should I do the plugs? At the same time as I do the turbo & UP when more things are out of the way? Or should I do them before or after by a few days just to minimize the number of things I change at one time? When I do the turbo I'm going to bypass the BCS so the car can be safely driven until I can get the tune done, which will likely be at least a 3 hour drive from where I do the turbo work and not necessarily within just a day or so. Reasoned opinions on both the sequencing and heat range of plugs will be appreciated.

 

BTW I found a set of the LFR7AIX on Amazon earlier today for $31.40 delivered.

Got my spark plugs off amazon.com.Worked well.

Just a followup on my previous issue about having a couple spark plugs that were very hard to remove. The first time I tried, they would turn about a quarter turn, and then got very hard to turn. At that time, I sprayed them down with PB Blaster, and let them sit. That didn't seem to help. Last Saturday I decided to try them again, but with the engine as warm as I could work on it. It was still a bit nerve racking, they didn't come out easy, but I got them all out. Once I got past the hard spot, they came out fine. I'm guessing that the anti-seize was gumming them up, and the extra heat helped get them loose.

 

Thanks for the help and ideas! It didn't completely fix my rough idle, but they definitely needed replacing!

how does knuckle extension look like

Did mine last night, for those that are not aware, and it has only been mentioned a few times, the driver side is a little of a different procedure on the 2007+.

 

You've got a plastic hot air pump which partially blocks both coils on the driver side. There is no need to completely remove the pipe, all you have to do is to unbolt the actual pump, unbolt the pipe from the engine, and disconnect the pipe from the pump. It will still be connected on one side, but I have found that it's easily movable to the side and you basically have the same access to the spark plugs as the 05-06 guys.

 

Otherwise the process is not that complicated, just time consuming. Also the hardest plug to remove/install I found to be the driver side rear one, it has the least clearance and turning the coil 108 degrees definitely helps.

would this be any easier from under the car? ie if it were on a lift

 

no, but when I did mine I took off the plastic hot air pump line on the drivers side and having it on my lift made that little step a lot easier. All the plug work is done from above.

 

very nice write up!

 

about 42K on the car and I was getting rough idle and an engine error code for lean on one of the cylinders. Plugs did the trick.

 

EDIT: Plugs did not really do the trick! It ended up being the o-ring gaskets between the intake manifold and the tumbler valves. The stock ones are too stiff in really cold weather and don't make a good seal until the motor heats up enough. No harm no foul in replacing the plugs though.

Edited March 18, 2011 by pieboy68

i read the first page couldnt really sit down and read all 39 pages but post 570 caught my attention unfortunately today and not yesterday or the day before when i was doing my plugs. I was able to do the passenger side no problemo the driver side was a little tougher i was able to get the front driver side but not the rear, if i knew about removing that air hose out of the way this probably wouldnt be an issue. i took it to a shop to get the last one out and after i left the shop i had a a check engine light. Was no big deal to me at the time, i have the accessport so cleared them. The codes i cleared was P2109 for throttle postion sensor and P0638 for throttle actuator control. First time i cleared them both went away continued driving it lightly to run a few errands notice the idle was a little irregular it eventually became normal, so i figured everything was fine and it was just getting used the newere spark plugs and maybe relearning since the battery was disconnected for awhile. So i finish taking care of a few things im on my way home i figured let me try to data log a little bit just to make sure everything is all right. while i was logging i decided to drive a little spirtited on the road i was on i did about 45mph just to see if it felt any difference, it felt normal i start going up a hill the car immediately goes into limp mode and while i have the throttle pressed the car isn't moving anywhere i tried pulling over but couldn't so my rear end is sitting half on the road, the idle starts jumping the motor started rumbling left to right so i shut down the car asap. check the codes again and only one code appears this time its the P2109 code tried about ten times to clear it didnt work so. I tried to start it a few times to see if i could at least move it more onto the side of the road and out of the way. Push the gas and nothing, it did act differently everytime i started the car it would rumble sometimes other times the idle would be irratic. I didn't let it run long i would see what it did then shut it immediately. i ended up rolling it backwards down the hill to a nearby parking lot and left it there to be towed.

 

My car ran as smooth as glass before trying to change plugs. It's modified Stage 2. itsme fmic, infamous tune through acessport and i changed the restictor pill that's all of my mechanical mods.

 

Now my question is has someone had an experience like this after chaning out plugs? I looked up the codes and the the only thing that i found was like 3 or fours years old. Could it be a sensor or something that could of been disconnected by the shop that i wouldn't normally see also they disconnected my fuel lines not that would make a difference since they are reconnected and im getting fuel and idk why they removed them in the first place. Any thoughts or suggestions are very much appreciated.

update: after i started looking around i found this

after i pulled off the piping for the fmic and when i pull the coupler off i noticed something else that was white fall out as well as this plastic body screw wedged in between my throttle body flap. I'm going to put everything back together to see if it starts to run normally.

Edited March 17, 2011 by slvrlegacygt

How the hell?