If you want long life, ofcourse the AC plugs are recommended by the factory, your dad is right in my opinion. I've also found that the factory plug part number stayed the same but instead of platinum, you get irridium plugs in the same box. A bunch of manufacurers are doing this. I heard NGK makes these (ac irridium) plugs for GM. YES the fancy metals in the plugs do make them retain their gap settings longer. ME? I run NGK TR6's. A cheap plug that does its job, and is cooler for nitrous. In go kart race technology alot of theories have emerged. One theory that I heard was that some plug brands have electrodes that wear faster than others, and that the faster wearing plugs mwere proven to make more power, Their research concluded that because of the "softer" electrode, microscopic metal fragments break off during the arc of the spark and help make the spark hotter by buring metal fragments inside the arc, therfore building more cyl pressure and more power at the cost of a plug that wore out quicker and plug gaps enlarge. (I wasn't supposed to tell this secret)
As manufacturers are competing for the sale, the zero maintenence motto is in the engineers brain. Yes the plug gaps will last longer with "new" irridium plugs, but who wants to pay 4 times the cost for 3 times the life? IMO for daily drivers the same can be done by re-gapping the plugs every 15k miles. Actually they are so cheap that I just replace them every 15k but in a street car they actually will run in the car for over 80k miles, ive seen it.
Last edited by z28viperkiller; Mar 5, 2006 at 03:23 AM.