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Zuh? High performance parts are great. If I found parts that I believed would make a difference over the stock parts, I'd buy them hands down. Gotta love the polyurethane alternator mount bushings. K&N air filters, silly platinum plugs, and expensive wires really aren't high performance. The stock air filter flows more than a stock Chevy 350 air filter, the copper plugs withstand the turbo abuse better, and the stock wires hold up extremely well.. I'd have to be running quite a bit more boost than I am right now before I'd consider any part of the ignition system a weak link.
Bougicord is the OE supplier to Volvo, IMO at about $40 they hardly qualify as cheap wires. I don't recall seeing any real complaints about the quality of these wires, turbo engine or not. Nor do I recall seeing Bosch wires (except for the OHV engines) being sold my my two favorite parts houses (IPD and FCP Groton), but they do offer the Bougies.. I'm quite confident that the wires will last a while, but of course only time will tell.
From what I've seen, most auto makers do not recommend the use of platinum plugs in their forced induction (or otherwise high perf) engines. My Taurus with its Vulcan V6 had platinum plugs, yet the SHO V6 motor (roughly twice the output) did not. If the platinum plugs are superior, why would the SHO motor not have them? In fact of th¯ Taurus motors, only the Vulcan V6 came from Ford (at least in 89) with platinum plugs. Neither the larger, more powerful, V6 nor the Super High Output V6 came with em.
It's my understanding that the platinum plugs were mainly an choice of economy. They can be ignored for about 100k miles, and thus allow auto makers to claim rediculous tune up intervals. Let's not forget the explicit warnings against running platinums in a turbo motor.
Again, my choice on plugs (NGK Copper) is based on seeing:
a.) complaints of poor running with platinum plugs (lots of them Bosch)
b.) complaints of poor QC with Bosch plugs in general
c.) Mazda recommending NGK plugs for the Rx-7 (certainly a demanding motor)
d.) IPD selling the copper NGK plugs almost exclusively
e.) FCP Groton explcitly recommending against Bosch +4 platinums being used with 700 series turbo motors
f.) My favorite warning (http://forums.audiworld.com/a4/msgs/1144943.phtml):
"WARNING: These are NOT for a turbo!!!! The higher temps in a turbo's cylinders can cause one of the platinum tips to burn through and fall into the cylinder. You don't wanna think about what happens next *shudder*."
g.) Price. The NGK copper plugs aren't the cheapest out there, but they're quite reasonable at about $2/plug.
How great could they be if they can't stand up to my motor?
- alex
'85 244 Turbo
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