NA Spark Plugs

[flat_black]

Take your current plugs out; What do they look like? =) Are they black, and powdery? Whitish? Or a nice, light tan?

 

[mp3moose]

Yeah, I will next time I see my car, but just more curious from a theoretical standpoint. Won't see the car until mid august.

 

[stdntDrvr]

flat black is the man...i wish you lived closer...you could help me decide on what to do with my motor...and help me do it, of course.

 

[flat_black]

Boo... I'd miss my car not seeing it every day!

10.7:1? Well, I guess it really depends on what the ECU has to say about the fueling issues for that. If you had a standalone, then get just the right tune, and check your plugs. If not, just see what the plugs say, is all. Really, you won't know 'till you peek. Do you have any head work, by any chance?

 

[flat_black]

That has to be the best compliment I've gotten on here! Thanks. =)

flat black is the man...i wish you lived closer...you could help me decide on what to do with my motor...and help me do it, of course.

 

[mp3moose]

sounds good. And no, no head work.

 

[stdntDrvr]

are you running those pistons on your stock ecu?

 

[mp3moose]

yes.

 

[stdntDrvr]

how's that working out for you?

 

[mp3moose]

Runs like stock. No Cel or any other problems. Been running it for ~2 1/2 years. Not much power increase without management, cams and porting. Made 113whp on andy's mustang dyno. (around 125-130whp on a dynojet depending on who you ask).

 

[stdntDrvr]

$320 isn't bad i guess...i'd like to see what you can get w/ cams, cam gears and some kind of engine management...so you didn't gain much...did you FEEL a difference after adding the pistons?

 

[mp3moose]

Yeah, me too. Care to front me the money? =) Honestly, didn't feel much after the pistons other than a little more pull in the topend. I get better gas milage though.

 

[stdntDrvr]

hmm...i get 32mpg...it dropped some after i took out my cams from SR, but it went back up after the ecu relearned the set-up. i try to tell my wife that all my mods are increasing my gas mileage, so they pay for themselves in the long-run...sometimes she buys it and sometimes she doesn't.

 

[mp3moose]

Well, you can tell her I get into the 40's with regard to mpg on roadtrips. Up to 43mpg once.

 

[stdntDrvr]

do you have an intake? do you still have your 2nd cat/stock exhaust? i'm sure you'd see more of a gain once you have those in place...along with the cams. someone on here said that you'd get 10whp/1 compression you go up...so you SHOULD get 16whp with those pistons once you get an EMS...but once you put all of your mods together, you may get more.

 

[mp3moose]

Yeah, the hood intake from dg motorsports (basically an AEM turned into a CAI thats ducted). And exhaust is stock after the header. Wouldn't mind a different exhaust but hard to find something that sounds nice and is pretty quiet...I don't want to hear my exhaust while cruising, only when I get on it.
On a side note, I just got a laptop so thinking of an mpi tuner or emanage at the moment.

 

[stdntDrvr]

racing beat cat-back...you'd like that one...i wish i still had mine!

 

[flat_black]

Actually, a bump in compression itself doesn't really increase power all that much. It just facilitates the production of more power, more than anything. It allows you to use more aggressive cams, and you can adjust the cam timing to take even more advantage of the high compression setup. I believe when I calculated it a while ago, I determined that only a couple of horsepower were to be had from pistons of 11:1 CR.

I think you got one of the harder bits to do out of the way, though. =) Next is the head work, and the rest of the exhaust, and, and, and...

 

[stdntDrvr]

well hell, i read that from one of the n/a guys on here...oh well.

 

[flat_black]

Well, like I said, it means you'll get more out of what you have, so you could probably grab a lot of power from it, tuned, just that a static bump of compression alone doesn't make the difference. =)