Took me about two hours with a few distractions. The driver's side was not too bad with the AIR tubing out of the way. That side probably took less than 30 minutes to do. The plugs coming out were the originals (79,300 miles on them) and without the platinum pucks the gaps were around 0.070".

The passenger side was a PITA. I moved the AIR tubing out of the way, and then moved the A/C tubing as far as it would go. All of these plugs were easier to pull with the plug wires off the coils and out of the way. Plugs from #2 and #4 were changed without too much drama -- it was just real tight to manuver. #6 was more of a fight because it was harder to reach, but it was doable in a reasonable amount of time. Now #8 was the worst by far since snaking my left hand under the coils and between the exhaust manifold and A/C box was very tight and I had to turn the plug wire "just so" with my hand and arm "just so" to pull the boot off. I ended up unbolting the #6 coil pack to get more room to rotate my arm. After getting the socket, universal, and ratchet on #8, I then thought I was screwed because I could not get much torque on the spark plug without the universal "giving way". My fingers of my other hand were not strong enough to hold it in place. I got lucky when I found an angle to place the rachet where it laid up against the A/C box and I could apply enough torque to break the spark plug loose. I used this method to tighten the new plug in place. I don't know how you would do it without wedging the universal up against the A/C box. #8 probably took me over 30 minutes by itself.

NGK TR55's are in. The car seems to run a little smoother now. I would highly recommend a pair of Mechanic's Gloves for doing this! Mine saved my hands a lot of abrasion.

 

I did #8 from under the car, but after LTs and !air its easier to get back there. Also if you take the coil packs off, leave the last 2 nuts off the vavle covers and its easy to remove them the next time to change plugs.

Also a little anti-seize on the new plugs will help with future changes.

 

I did the anti-seize on all the plugs. The '98 engines have individual coil packs each bolted to the valve covers, so I just unbolted #6 to get a little more room to get to #8. I looked at doing #8 from under the car, but the access past the cat did not look much better then getting to it from above.

Glad it is done!

 

ya i took of the coil packs and did 8 from under the car