I've already purchased a set of Denso IK22 spark plugs. However, after a conversation with a MINI Tuner, I was unsure about making the switch to Denso plugs. From what I understand, there was a modified vehicle with Denso plugs that experienced a mechanical mishap. I'm uncertain if the spark plugs contributed to the problem, as this particular vehicle had other modifications as well. I'm wondering if anyone has had any problem with Denso iridium plugs. :smile:

 

I've had mine for almost 5 months now and not a single issue. Increased MPG and HP. What issues did he have??

 

I have Denso iridium plugs in one of my other vehicles for over a year now and they've been fine. After learning about the incident, I was thinking of switching out the Denso in the other car. Perhaps that was an isolated case.

_________________
Terminally infected with the epidemic MINI MOD BUG that's going around NAM

 

Dave,

Denso plugs are widely used as standard in very reliable cars like Toyota and Lexus so I have to believe that the plugs are not an issue. With some modified cars it is advisable to change the plugs for colder or hotter heat ranges depending on the detonation characteristics. With an MCS with a pulley change for instance, it is advisable to move to a colder range plug to ensure the correct detonation.

If your friend did not correct the plug for the mods, he might have instigated the problem.

I would think the Denso's would be fine otherwise.

Cheers

 

I understand the importance of selecting a correct plug for the purpose as there are many different temperature ranges for different applications.

 

I have the IK22's in mine with no problems, but I only have the pully, K&N Typhoon and Magnaflow. If I'm not mistaking, the IK22's are the next step colder from the stock heat range. Sounds like something went way lean for some reason.

 

Which well known Mini tuner ?? Could it be the one that put them in my car ?? Inquiring minds want too know.

Did the car that had the trouble have any high output ignition system upgrades that may or may not have had a contributing factor ?

 

How does one bad experience make the product bad? Don't understand the logic of this one. If only one bad experience has been found it could either be a fluke or just a bad singular product.

No matter how well something is made, if it is made in enough quantities a few will be bad. If this tuner has used them in the past with no problem, and then one catastrophically destroys the engine, I would have to say either this was a really rare problem plug, or most likely it was attributed to something else, that this tuner was unable to interperet or identify.

It is like me saying, if my horn stops working one day and at the same time the airbag goes off, then touting claims that Minis are unsafe, the horns should be removed because they make airbags go off unexpectedly. This could be a logical consequence, but since it has never been reported anywhere else, most likely this isn't the correct statement, even though from the surface it seems like a logical explanation.

The NKG's are nice, but from what I have heard the one step colder ones require you to purchase them from BMW, and they are very expensive.

 

From past experiences with Densos in force inducted cars, they work well but are fragile. So long as you never approach detonation, they will be awesome. Should you push too much boost, get some bad gas, or have any other issue that creates ping, they are likely to go to pieces. The ceramic tends to break away fairly easily, several times I ended up with little ceramic flame suppressors as they broke in a circle and slid down over the electrode. They also seem more prone to ground strap melting than NGKs. Plus they cost about 5 times what NGKs do... a big selling point for copper.

 

It is like me saying, if my horn stops working one day and at the same time the airbag goes off, then touting claims that Minis are unsafe, the horns should be removed because they make airbags go off unexpectedly. This could be a logical consequence, but since it has never been reported anywhere else, most likely this isn't the correct statement, even though from the surface it seems like a logical explanation.

Correlation not causation

 

>>Which well known Mini tuner ?? Could it be the one that put them in my car ?? Inquiring minds want too know.

It's in the west coast!!


_________________
Terminally infected with the epidemic MINI MOD BUG that's going around NAM

 

>>The NKG's are nice, but from what I have heard the one step colder ones require you to purchase them from BMW, and they are very expensive.

I think he does stock the colder NKG plugs. :smile:

 

>>From past experiences with Densos in force inducted cars, they work well but are fragile. So long as you never approach detonation, they will be awesome. Should you push too much boost, get some bad gas, or have any other issue that creates ping, they are likely to go to pieces. The ceramic tends to break away fairly easily, several times I ended up with little ceramic flame suppressors as they broke in a circle and slid down over the electrode. They also seem more prone to ground strap melting than NGKs. Plus they cost about 5 times what NGKs do... a big selling point for copper.

So it's possible for the Denso to cause a problem!!!

 

The failure sounds horrible! That the owner might never want to use another Denso plug is understandable. ...But to conclude that the plug was to blame is to over-simplify. ...And as for the dealer (mini-madness?) he's not without bias.

This experience and argument is comprised of nothing but fallacy: Presumption - False Cause and Appeal to Authority

The conclusions stated here are no more logical or scientific than the following statements:

All dogs are brown. I know this to be true, because every dog I have ever seen has been brown, and because my friend the dogcatcher also says this is true.

Folks:
We’re talking one isolated incident and one as of yet un-named tuner. Let's not jump to illogical and vastly unscientific conclusions.

 

>> The NKG's are nice, but from what I have heard the one step colder ones require you to purchase them from BMW, and they are very expensive.

Here's a site that carries the NGK plugs, which is the same as JCW ones. :smile:

 

>>Here's a quote from the web page:
>>
>>...what happens when a MINI run's too lean with it's air to fuel mixture and has predetonation occur. Not a pretty site, this customer was running our competitors software, and STOCK replacement Denso plugs. We believe a combination of lean running and the stock heat range plug resulted in this damage.
>>
>>
>>
I noticed the link was not there to show the $1000.00 in damage I'm installing my Denso ik22 plugs tomorrow.

X2

 

yes i'm not convinced either.

So if Mini produces one lemon car, does that mean they are all bad cars? nope.

i think your boy just simply went with the wrong plugs for his setup. thats why you speak with professionals who are KNOWLEDGEABLE (<---- key word) about the mini products and performance. sounds like your west coast boys were just too quick to offer a competing product instead of rationalizing the solution. Try giving Randy at Webb a call and see what plugs your boy needs - bet that would solve your problem.

ABT <---- Getting Denso Iridiums

 

welcome to the most expensive explanation of heat ranges for plugs, this is why they have a heat range.

Dont turn your mini into a diesel, get the heat range

 

FYI on the Denso plug issue. The plugs that this customer purchased on his own were the Denso Iridum plugs but not the colder heat range version. Basically a stock replacement plug. Ubercooper is right by stating that this is an expensive way to learn why to run a cooler running plug is a good idea. Cooler running plugs help remove in cylinder heat therby helping to prevent predetonation on a modified powerplant.

We never stated that the plug was the cause of the failure but rather a combination of the the 2. His software was leaning out the mixture to an unsafe level in our opinion and it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. Running ANY cooler range plug would have potentially prevented this. We decided to stop running Denso plugs for a number of reasons #1 being our discussion with BMW AG regarding plug specifications and applications. They stated that the MINI engine design simply requires a 4 ground plug for a number of reasons. Based on this and more information we decided to start running the NGK (JCW) brand.

We used to run Denso's in our MINI and had no issues on tracck and on the street.

Hope this helps clear this up, pictures of the dead plug and piston will be up on our site shortly for your viewing pleasure

 

ABT-sportsline:

["sounds like your west coast boys were just too quick to offer a competing product instead of rationalizing the solution"]

Wrong, we were offering the NGK's before this happened, nice assumption. Also it took us a good week to determine the root cause of the failure which was ultimately custom software, care to take a guess at who's software it was? Here's a hint, not ours :smile:

 

Also it took us a good week to determine the root cause of the failure which was ultimately custom software, care to take a guess at who's software it was? Here's a hint, not ours :smile:
>>
>>


How was this determined? Thanks.

--
Cheese

 

And this is why people need to be careful what they post, before everyone goes down an entire discussion with uninformed statements.

The discussion was started, stating that the tuner advised them not to use Iridiums because of bad experience with plugs. This is wholly untrue based on both what Mini-madness stated and what their website indicated.

The problem was really related to the software the customer was running. The fact that he was running a brand of plugs was for the most part irrelevant. Anytime you run the engine lean you are running into serious problems. At some point something has to break. In this instance the first thing to break was the spark plugs and the fact that they were one step hotter than they should have been. If he had, had the NGKs in the car, they may have broken as well. Given enough time it would have been another component. If another component had broken, we could not blame that component as weak, since you are pressing the engine into unsafe territory outside of it's operating ranges. This is similiar to me putting in a 50% reduction pulley and seeing one of the bearings fail and then blaming it on a combination of the pulley and bad bearings. This is false logic. The problem was with the pulley pushing the car outside of it's operating range.

It would have been better for Mini-madness to have stated that they do not recommend the Denso's because of discussions with BMW AG. This would have been a true statement.

I don't think you can lump the brand of the spark plugs as a contributing factor in this situtation. Add this to the fact that a lot of people use the Denso and no one has reported a problem with the plug, makes the conversation about the Denso brand being a problem mute.

 

>>The discussion was started, stating that the tuner advised them not to use Iridiums because of bad experience with plugs. This is wholly untrue based on both what Mini-madness stated and what their website indicated.

I appreciate your opinon! What I posted is the impression I had after my personal discussion with him. Initially, I didn't want to mention any specific name. I simply wanted to find out NAM members' experiences with Denso. I did mentioned that the car had other modifications that could possibly contribute to the incident.



_________________
Terminally infected with the epidemic MINI MOD BUG that's going around NAM

 

>>FYI on the Denso plug issue. The plugs that this customer purchased on his own were the Denso Iridum plugs but not the colder heat range version. Basically a stock replacement plug. Ubercooper is right by stating that this is an expensive way to learn why to run a cooler running plug is a good idea. Cooler running plugs help remove in cylinder heat therby helping to prevent predetonation on a modified powerplant.
>>
>>We never stated that the plug was the cause of the failure but rather a combination of the the 2. His software was leaning out the mixture to an unsafe level in our opinion and it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. Running ANY cooler range plug would have potentially prevented this. We decided to stop running Denso plugs for a number of reasons #1 being our discussion with BMW AG regarding plug specifications and applications. They stated that the MINI engine design simply requires a 4 ground plug for a number of reasons. Based on this and more information we decided to start running the NGK (JCW) brand.
>>
>>We used to run Denso's in our MINI and had no issues on tracck and on the street.
>>
>>Hope this helps clear this up, pictures of the dead plug and piston will be up on our site shortly for your viewing pleasure :smile:

Can you elaborate on BMW's reasoning for a 4 ground plug?

 

Dave,

I wasn't there, I was referring to the discussion on this thread, not the one you had with the tuner. This is what you stated above:

"he convinced me not to switch to Denso plugs due to a bad experience from one of his customers with Denso iridium plugs. "

You then stated that he had other modifications. But you first post was directed at the Denso and the quote above as being the problems. I made the statement because we weren't there, but you just made this statement with not much supporting it. Nothing here has remotely indicated that the brand of spark plugs was an issue or even contributed to the fact.