Iridium plugs anyone?

[mental999]

Anybody installed Iridium sparkplugs on their Hyper? If so, what are your thoughts.

[Shazaam]

Platinum and Iridium Sparkplugs - Ducati.ms - The Ultimate Ducati Forum

[Decreasing Dave]

I was going to, but now I'm not sure.

If you are using them, what gap are you setting them at??

I'll wait to see what the (im)moral majority has to say.

Dave

[el tardo]

i love threads like this. just wondering what makes a ducati motor any different then then any other motor? nothing.
iridium plugs works great in any bike.the tip gets hotter quicker so they are less likely to foul and last longer. to be truthful imo spark plug gap other then stock only matters in the forced induction world. our bike or any bike for that matter doesnt have enough compression to matter with gap is concerned.
keep in mind most people think spark plugs can make power which they cant.Anyway, the benefits of an iridium plug are not directly related to an increase in HP. The iridium plug provides constant and stable spark, it is more difficult to foul or short-circuit and it helps the engine run cleaner and more efficiently, with less residues and thus slightly better consumption and throttle response. This is important for any bike, especially in cold weather/engine conditions because while the engine warms up, harmful combustion residues are less because the fuel mixture is burned better than with a regular plug.

i have played with plugs for about ten years and 99% of the time iridium's are the best choice in any motor. for more facts on plugs go to ngk usa website and you can find all the truth there.
copied from there site--Iridium

Iridium is a precious metal that is 6 times harder and 8 times stronger than platinum, it has a 1,200°(F) higher melting point than platinum and conducts electricity better. This makes it possible to create the finest wire center electrode ever. Prior till now, spark plug manufacturers have favored platinum for their long life or performance spark plugs due to its high melting point. However platinum alone is no longer enough, ultra long life spark plugs and smaller center electrodes required harder and stronger precious metals. The strength, hardness and high melting point of iridium makes it very well suited for a fine wire plug and for ultra long life spark plugs. Though better, it’s not perfect, it is very expensive, and at higher temperatures it oxides, thus rendering pure iridium as an expensively poor choice for spark plug construction. However when blended with other precious metals such as Yttria, Rhodium or Platinum, you can enhance those metals advantages with the superior strength and hardness of Iridium. Almost all manufacturers have their own version of an iridium spark plug. DO NOT BE FOOLED, all iridium plugs are not the same. Iridium content varies, some of the lower priced iridium plugs have just enough iridium content so they can be marketed as iridium plugs. They likely will not perform or last as long as the plugs with a higher iridium content.

heres a pdf link aswell-- http://sparkplugs.com/pdfs/iri.pdf

Originally Posted by Shazaam

Platinum and Iridium Sparkplugs - Ducati.ms - The Ultimate Ducati Forum

[redscout]

I didn't notice any difference, but some threads on here seem to swear by them. Keeping the plugs clean and better burning may be happening, but it's not evident from the seat. IMO.

[CDONA]

From the past,

Smoother yet

[lelenb]

I have them and did not notice much difference. I wanted to open the stock gap slightly, but the electrode is hard and brittle so I left it pre-gapped from NGK.

[Activator]

Best $25 you can spend! Smooths out the low-rpm throttle, so you can pull fairly cleanly from @2,500rpm rather than 3,000, plus I feel like I get a few more MPG since installing the Iridium plugs. I had them on my Multi 620, and noticed a big difference on that bike as well.

[08hyper]

Originally Posted by 08hyper

Michael, I hate to tell you this but, go back to the #8 heat range (hotter), I just finished my motor mods, I went big bore, HC pistons, cams, bigger valves, porting, ceramic coated pistons tops & combustion chambers, with the Febur oil cooler, and I also put in the NGK DCPR9EIX gapped to 27 thou, to make sure that my bike would not run too hot, the bike ran great, but it ran cool, cooler than the other Hypers that I compared my bike to.

After I had a conversation with the guy who did my engine coatings, he said that for best performance that I should be running 1 to 2 range hotter than stock! & that the coatings would protect my engine, so when I was doing my dyno runs I ran the #9 (cooler) plugs and than switched to the hotter DCPR8EIX (stock heat range) also gapped to 27 thou, and guess what? I picked up 1HP on the dyno with just the plugs. My bike is now making a little over 102HP, but I still need to do some more testing/tweaking. The bike runs great! I gapped the plugs to the Ducati manual specs, 0.6 to 0.7mm (27 thou) What I just read from Shazzam's post, I did not know about, or I would have tried the bigger gap also, to see what it does.
But what I DID find out is that the bike does like the #8 heat range better than the #9 heat range, now you know Alex

My old post, the iridium plugs did not give me any extra HP over the stock ones in the same heat range, (execpt for the hotter #8 ones,) but did produce a "smoother" line on my dyno chart, with less small dips, did I feel it? no, but its there. I now gap the plugs to 0.8mm or 32 thou. Aloha Alex

[Steve C]

Haven't tried them in the Hyper but do use them in my ole Yamaha FJ that has a 1349cc motor built by Hank Scott (AMA Hall of Fame #14) down in the Charlotte area. The man knows how to make serious HP in old air cooled engines and mine came back after the rebuild with Iridiums installed, that's a good enough endorsement for me to use 'em in the Duc when it's time for a change.