best performance spark plugs?

spunk_monkey

Hey,

Got my mkv gti remapped today!

Started out great...at stock, the car was putting out just over 210bhp(kind of wasn't surprised at this as have driven a few mkv gtis and this certainly felt like it had a little extra kick).

Anyway, after the remap, it was only putting out about 225 bhp..was expecting closer to 250:(

The guy that mapped it said he reckons the car need a new air filter(currently has the original one @35 k kms) and replacement performance spark plugs- he mentioned NGK)

I assume this car has 4 plugs yeah? What plugs should I go for, or will any NGK do? Hoping I get a good improvement after the new plugs and filter:)

If it was putting out 210bhp immediately prior to the remap and then afterwards was putting out 225bhp do you really reckon plugs and the filter are strangling her?

-Corkie-

The most you will get out of a performance air filter is 7-8 BHP if your lucky.

TestTransmission

Sounds like he was giving you an excuse,where did you get it done?

drunkmonkey

Can I ask the same question but with cheap after best?

Gary ITR

-Corkie- wrote: »

The most you will get out of a performance air filter is 7-8 BHP if your lucky.

Show's what you know

Is it a white GTI?

spunk_monkey

RoverJames wrote: »

If it was putting out 210bhp immediately prior to the remap and then afterwards was putting out 225bhp do you really reckon plugs and the filter are strangling her?

thats what I thought, but in fairness I'm very limited in my knowledge about these things. The guy who mapped it(Joe fron TDR/chipped irl) seems to know what is is talking about, and he reckoned it was the plugs and filter.

How much would I expect to pay for performance plugs? I assume it needs 4 yeah?

Gary ITR

spunk_monkey wrote: »

thats what I thought, but in fairness I'm very limited in my knowledge about these things. The guy who mapped it(Joe fron TDR/chipped irl) seems to know what is is talking about, and he reckoned it was the plugs and filter.

How much would I expect to pay for performance plugs? I assume it needs 4 yeah?

Ah ffs... I was the fat guy in the Urban shirt, I would have advised on plugs/filters if I'd known you needed help

spunk_monkey

Onkle wrote: »

Ah ffs... I was the fat guy in the Urban shirt, I would have advised on plugs/filters if I'd known you needed help

:eek: I didn't see any fat guys! Were you the dude that owns that lovely DC5?

Gary ITR

spunk_monkey wrote: »

:eek: I didn't see any fat guys! Were you the dude that owns that lovely DC5?

No that's Mick, I own the red DC2 that was on the ramp engineless, I even said hello to you, I drove in in the Focus

Unless the filter is very very bad replacing it with a new like for like one along with performance plugs won't do much. If the car was gagging for new plugs and an air filter you wouldn't be seeing 210bhp from it.

spunk_monkey

Onkle wrote: »

No that's Mick, I own the red DC2 that was on the ramp engineless, I even said hello to you, I drove in in the Focus

Ahh yea, no I just got confused when you said the fat guy! I think your goin a bit hard on yerself!

Joe did advise me on plugs..but I've forgotten already, all I remember is he said NGK..

spunk_monkey

RoverJames wrote: »

Unless the filter is very very bad replacing it with a new like for like one along with performance plugs won't do much. If the car was gagging for new plugs and an air filter you wouldn't be seeing 210bhp from it.

Well, the airfilter is the original one, and theres 36k km on the car, same goes for the spark plugs...

-Corkie-

spunk_monkey wrote: »

Ahh yea, no I just got confused when you said the fat guy! I think your goin a bit hard on yerself!

Joe did advise me on plugs..but I've forgotten already, all I remember is he said NGK..

Thats strange because he knows his stuff.

spunk_monkey

spunk_monkey wrote: »

Well, the airfilter is the original one, and theres 36k km on the car, same goes for the spark plugs...

When was the 210bhp result obtained? Today?
I would thing that car has 60k mile platinum plugs in it anyway so they're hardly the issue.

spunk_monkey

RoverJames wrote: »

When was the 210bhp result obtained? Today?

yep

How much was the remap?

spunk_monkey

RoverJames wrote: »

How much was the remap?

Ill PM you

Ask the chap who mapped it with a new OE air filter from VW and a new set of plugs of his choice what increase should you see. I would hazard a guess the plugs and filter suggestions only came about after the remap, amazingly enough

Atomic Pineapple

Is there any chance the car may have had a mild map on it before that boosted it to the 210bhp? So when you got it knocked off and then remapped the remap actually added 25bhp from standard?

I think expecting a 50bhp jump from a GTi is a bit optimistic to be honest, around 230 - 235 bhp would seem to be more accurate figure when they are dyno'd properly.

spunk_monkey

draffodx wrote: »

Is there any chance the car may have had a mild map on it before that boosted it to the 210bhp? So when you got it knocked off and then remapped the remap actually added 25bhp from standard?

I think expecting a 50bhp jump from a GTi is a bit optimistic to be honest, around 230 - 235 bhp would seem to be more accurate figure when they are dyno'd properly.

I did think of this, but the I have checked with the previous owner, he said 100% no remap..Joe also confirmed it had not been remapped. H said that you do see the odd 1 putting out about 10bhp over stock.

I'd get a new OE filter from VW and let the remap chap nominate a set of plugs, lash them in and see the story then

tossy

-Corkie- wrote: »

The most you will get out of a performance air filter is 7-8 BHP if your lucky.

If i got 7-8bhp from a performance filter i'd be chuffed but i think i'd be driving a big NA V10 or something not a hope of those figures on a 2.0T

OP NGK Iridium are great plugs i used them in my old Bora the are good plug for handling the extra heat created by heavy modifications such as big turbo etc might be slight overkill but no harm in uprating key engine components when you are pushing a car on power wise.

Gary ITR

RoverJames wrote: »

Ask the chap who mapped it with a new OE air filter from VW and a new set of plugs of his choice what increase should you see. I would hazard a guess the plugs and filter suggestions only came about after the remap, amazingly enough

Ah you're being a bit hard there, chatting with Joe there he said the car was choking and gagging on the dyno. You are jumping to conclusions and that's a tad unfair on the parties involved. I have the benefit of having Joe here beside me and dyno graphs too and I can see exactly what he's talking about

Nonoperational

Surprised at that, in fairness Joe is very good at remapping those. 225 isn't great in fairness especially if it was putting out 210 stock. 15bhp improvement is weak. Will you PM me how much you paid too please.

spunk_monkey

gpf101 wrote: »

Surprised at that, in fairness Joe is very good at remapping those. 225 isn't great in fairness especially if it was putting out 210 stock. 15bhp improvement is weak. Will you PM me how much you paid too please.

Yep, I agree, Joe does know his stuff, and I will be following his advice and getting new filter and plugs. Will be getting it dynod again and looking forward to the results, I don't think I'll be disappointed:)

gofaster_s13

Performance plugs are a waste of money, plugs will not make horsepower, the best plug you can fit is an ordinary copper plug as it's a far better conducter(of both electricity and heat) than either Platinum or Iridium, Platinum and Iridium plugs are only there to extend service intervals. The only disadvantage to Copper plugs is shorter service intervals.

I've seen a couple of big power turbo engines destroyed when the Iridium tip fell off the "high performance plug" and destroyed the bore(the last one I heard of getting damaged happened a few weeks ago on Martin Traceys rollers on a 1.8T Golf Rallye)

Onkle

Onkle wrote: »

Ah you're being a bit hard there, chatting with Joe there he said the car was choking and gagging on the dyno. You are jumping to conclusions and that's a tad unfair on the parties involved. I have the benefit of having Joe here beside me and dyno graphs too and I can see exactly what he's talking about

I don't mean to be hard on this Joe chap

I'm being completely impartial. 210 seen before the map and 225 after, Joe chap has apparently commented that the air filter needs replacement along with performance plugs. The only conclusion I am jumping to is that I reckon there was no mention of the plugs and filter needing replacement when 210 was seen pre map

New OE air filter and new plugs to Joe's taste are as I've said the best course of action, see what it makes then

If the dyno is accurate and it was 210 bhp prior to the map without choking and gagging on the existing plugs and filter I can't see either being an issue to be honest.

Gary ITR

RoverJames wrote: »

I don't mean to be hard on this Joe chap

I'm being completely impartial. 210 seen before the map and 225 after, Joe chap has apparently commented that the air filter needs replacement along with performance plugs. The only conclusion I am jumping to is that I reckon there was no mention of the plugs and filter needing replacement when 210 was seen pre map

New OE air filter and new plugs to Joe's taste are as I've said the best course of action, see what it makes then

If the dyno is accurate and it was 210 bhp prior to the map without choking and gagging on the existing plugs and filter I can't see either being an issue to be honest.

The car was breathing happily at 210bhp, as you press and look for more air the car needs to be breathing perfectly and if the filter is any way clogged then it's not going to happen.

As far as I know Joe didn't push any filters on the customer even though we have ITG filters for that car on the shelf so it wasn't a case of trying to upsell.

spunk_monkey

spunk_monkey wrote: »

..............The guy who mapped it(Joe fron TDR/chipped irl) .................

Onkle wrote: »

The car was breathing happily at 210bhp, as you press and look for more air the car needs to be breathing perfectly and if the filter is any way clogged then it's not going to happen.

As far as I know Joe didn't push any filters on the customer even though we have ITG filters for that car on the shelf so it wasn't a case of trying to upsell.

Excuse my lack of knowledge but does Joe work at UrbanPerformance?

Sometimes some upselling is the appropriate thing to do, prior to the remap in the case of an airfilter would be my thinking. The situation now is that a chap is after shelling out for a remap and now has been told he needs a new filter and performance plugs to get the benefit of it, hardly a great situation really. Easily that could be a ton or more.

tossy

gofaster_s13 wrote: »

Performance plugs are a waste of money, plugs will not make horsepower, the best plug you can fit is an ordinary copper plug as it's a far better conducter(of both electricity and heat) than either Platinum or Iridium, Platinum and Iridium plugs are only there to extend service intervals. The only disadvantage to Copper plugs is shorter service intervals.

I disagree completely standard OE plugs on my supercharged V6 engine didn't last pissing time and when the did actually work the car was way down on power,upgraded to NGK Iridium and the difference was night and day in both output and life,never had any issues.To make a statement like performance plugs are a waste of time is a bit naive i think.

Gary ITR

RoverJames wrote: »

Excuse my lack of knowledge but does Joe work at UrbanPerformance?

Sometimes some upselling is the appropriate thing to do, prior to the remap in the case of an airfilter would be my thinking. The situation now is that a chap is after shelling out for a remap and now has been told he needs a new filter and performance plugs to get the benefit of it, hardly a great situation really. Easily that could be a ton or more.

It's alright you're excused :pac:

If I had have gotten chatting to the lad I'd have told him all about the benefits of the performance filters but unfortunately I was tied up dealing with something else

Nope he doesn't work for Urban, he's a separate entity, with tuning he does the Euro stuff and we do the Jap stuff. We do all the mechanical work though, so we share things like DPF removal and if somebody is looking for performance parts fitted we'll do the mechanical end and Joe will do the tuning.
The map that's on the car now will be good with a different filter, the VW's all react the same to the maps unlike say a Honda, for sh1ts and giggles we put a map from another ITR with the same spec as mine onto my car and my car ran like a bag of nails. Whereas the VW's are all the same so the map is far from a waste of money, yes the customer has paid for a remap, it's what he came in for, if he pops a filter in the car will improve again so hardly a waste?

Just because Joe isn't a salesperson doesn't make him bad at what he does

These guys have a conscience and don't want to push things on customers, I however have no conscience and will gladly take every penny I can get :pac:

Onkle

Onkle wrote: »

.......... I however have no conscience and will gladly take every penny I can get :pac:

Fair play :cool:

Gary ITR

RoverJames wrote: »

Fair play :cool:

Well to be fair I wouldn't sell somebody something that they don't need or will get no benefit from

TestTransmission

Onkle wrote: »

Well to be fair I wouldn't sell somebody something that they don't need or will get no benefit from

lolz

Onkle

Onkle wrote: »

Well to be fair I wouldn't sell somebody something that they don't need or will get no benefit from

Indeed, I knew that

Nonoperational

I sound like a bloody advertising agent at this stage but I was up with him before and he actually talked me out of getting a map at that time. We had just fixed something which bought the car back performing like it should and he said to enjoy it a while and get a remap when I get used to it I don't think he'd try get you to buy filters etc, that wasn't the impression I got anyway.

spunk_monkey

gpf101 wrote: »

I sound like a bloody advertising agent at this stage but I was up with him before and he actually talked me out of getting a map at that time. We had just fixed something which bought the car back performing like it should and he said to enjoy it a while and get a remap when I get used to it I don't think he'd try get you to buy filters etc, that wasn't the impression I got anyway.

Indeed ...Joe certainly did not try to 'upsale' me or any of the sort...he told me the reason why I only saw +15 hp after the remap was because I probably needed new filter and plugs..he didn't try to sell me them though..I was the one who asked him could he fit them, he said yeah, just to bring them into him..I was the one who asked did he sell them, and that it would be handier for me if I just ordered them off him ,which is what I did!

Going by what he said, and what Onkle says ( both of which I'm confidant that they know what they are talking about) I'm confident I'll be much happier with the results when this is done:)

Nonoperational

Hopefully. I'd still be a bit surprised that it's pushing out 210bhp standard if the plugs and filter aren't right. Time will tell...



Did you notice any difference with the extra 15bhp?

Matt Simis

tossy wrote: »

I disagree completely standard OE plugs on my supercharged V6 engine didn't last pissing time and when the did actually work the car was way down on power,upgraded to NGK Iridium and the difference was night and day in both output and life,never had any issues.To make a statement like performance plugs are a waste of time is a bit naive i think.

I agree with Tossy, GoFaster look up what [NGK] Iridium plugs are all about. Platinum plugs are indeed more of a super long life plugs, Iridiums are not (still a lot longer than Copper though). Iridium also uses 5Kv less voltage than Platinum, making them easier on the Ignition system and ignite better.

gofaster_s13

Matt Simis wrote: »

I agree with Tossy, GoFaster look up what [NGK] Iridium plugs are all about. Platinum plugs are indeed more of a super long life plugs, Iridiums are not (still a lot longer than Copper though). Iridium also uses 5Kv less voltage than Platinum, making them easier on the Ignition system and ignite better.

For Performance, nothing beats a Copper plug, Platinum and Iridium have far worse conductivity than Copper and don't dissipate heat as quickly which is why the tip tends to burn away in high power applications. If you buy a pure racing/competition plug(ie Champion racing whiuch are considered the best, good enough for formula 1) then you are buying a Copper cored plug. If all your interested in is performance, fit Copper, this isnt just my opinion, it's a fact. If you don't want to be changing plugs regularly, fit Iridium, if you want the best performance fit Copper.

The owner of the 1.8t Golf Rallye that I mentioned earlier had(if I remember correctly) 3 damaged Iridium plugs and was told by Martin Tracey not to bother with "performance plugs" and if one of the best engine builder/mapper/tuner in the country gives advice like this, it's worth listening to.

Nonoperational

That maybe true but the fact is there are thousands of remapped MKV GTIs putting out 240bhp+ on standard longlife plugs. They cost around €40 for 4 from VW. I wouldn't bother with anything else to be honest.

spunk_monkey

gpf101 wrote: »

That maybe true but the fact is there are thousands of remapped MKV GTIs putting out 240bhp+ on standard longlife plugs. They cost around €40 for 4 from VW. I wouldn't bother with anything else to be honest.

Yep, the plugs that are in mine are the ones that it came out of the factory with..same with the air filter..perhaps it's the air filter that's more of an issue than the plugs?

spunk_monkey

spunk_monkey wrote: »

Yep, the plugs that are in mine are the ones that it came out of the factory with..same with the air filter..perhaps it's the air filter that's more of an issue than the plugs?

Plugs should be ok for 60k miles If the plugs were the issue you wouldn't be seeing 210bhp at the mo.

For sh1ts and giggles it would be good to
- rr it again as is and get the reading
- change air filter and get a rr result
- put back in the old filter and lash in the new plugs and get a rr result
- rr it with new plugs and new filter

That's the only way to actually see what gives the increase and to see what's strangling it at the moment, not really feasible though I'd say. Is it an OE air filter or performance one you have ordered?

Nonoperational

spunk_monkey wrote: »

Yep, the plugs that are in mine are the ones that it came out of the factory with..same with the air filter..perhaps it's the air filter that's more of an issue than the plugs?

Maybe, it's worth a try anyway. I wouldn't be convinced but maybe. Worth a try anyway.

Urban Per4mance: Gary

RoverJames wrote: »

Plugs should be ok for 60k miles If the plugs were the issue you wouldn't be seeing 210bhp at the mo.

For sh1ts and giggles it would be good to
- rr it again as is and get the reading
- change air filter and get a rr result
- put back in the old filter and lash in the new plugs and get a rr result
- rr it with new plugs and new filter

That's the only way to actually see what gives the increase and to see what's strangling it at the moment, not really feasible though I'd say. Is it an OE air filter or performance one you have ordered?

We'd happily do that, if you pay for it James

I might try it with the plugs on my own car which will be on the dyno for a couple of days this week being ran in and then tuned

Urban Per4mance: Gary

Urban Per4mance: Gary wrote: »

We'd happily do that, if you pay for it James

..........

Ah yeah, I know it's a non runner, not at all feasible

Urban Per4mance: Gary

RoverJames wrote: »

Ah yeah, I know it's a non runner, not at all feasible

TBH we've done more on the dyno, we removed a standard airbox from a Civic and replaced it with a performance filter. The car jumped 8bhp btw, this was at the boards.ie leg waxing dyno day

spunk_monkey

RoverJames wrote: »

. Is it an OE air filter or performance one you have ordered?

I don't know to be honest, Joe just said it needed new filter and plugs..so I agreed and asked could he order, fit them and run the car on the dyno after to verify that they have sorted the issue..which I'm hoping it does.

I assume its just a standard replacement filter..

spunk_monkey

As mentioned before, I know very little about this stuff, I'm going to go ahead and order a new air filter and spark plugs now..but before I do, just wanted to make sure I'm ordering the correct ones?

Plugs:
code:http://changegears.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/new-oem-spark-plugs-06h-905-601-a-ngk-pfr7s8eg/

Code:
NGK PFR7S8EG


Filter:
http://www.eurocarparts.com/ecp/c/Volkswagen_Golf_2.0_2008/p/car-parts/engine-parts/filters/air-filters/?502440770&1&89ed9cca23959350fd49cb5f22bc05e00963b2c9&AIRF

This look ok? Thanks

Plug

Is there any reason why the car was pushing out more power than standard? I think the stock power is 197hp but this pushed out 210hp before the remap.
Could there have maybe been a high performance exhaust system put on or some kind of a mod? Or is the machine accurate, maybe a recalibration needed? Cars dont just put out more horsepower for the craic.