Plugs/Wires (wires bad)
 

Hey everyone,

Well I know not to by Bosch for a ranger but what plugs and wires are the best. I have heard Autolite and Motorcraft from numerous people. What plugs are the best though? It dosent have to be those brands either. Any opinons on Plugs?

What about wires? I hear alot of talk about plugs but what about wires. I have two bad wires on my truck. They are about due for a change but I didnt expect to have them arcing at this point.

What is a good brand for wires? Any opinions on which ones hold up better?


Any help is aprriciated.
Thanks eveyone.

94 4.0l

Autolite = Motorcraft , and are what came on the truck. Stick with them.
Stay away from Champion as they don't hold up very long.
Wires don't have to visibly arc to be bad. The conductor breaks down over time inside the insulation.
I usually just get them from NAPA.

Pretty hard to go wrong with Motorcraft wires. Honeywell makes Autolilte and Motorcraft plugs. You will want to use dual platinums for the longest life due to Fords "waste spark" feature in the system design.

What is the "waste spark" feature. I am not farmiliar with this. Is there somewhere that I can read up on it?

Is it a recurculation of raw fuel in the exhaust trough back pressure or somthing? I'm just guessing. I'd be interesed to learn about it. Let me know.

Also, is it worth it to get a little better set of wires? Because my wires were autolite (I think) and they are all cracked. Accel wires I see alot but I am not sure how good they are. Id like a strong thick plug wire. It dosent have to be preformance just ones that will hold up.

Does the Denso Irridium spark plug work well in the ranger? If so is double platinum or single irridium better?

Thanks!

The "waste spark" he refers to is on 4 cyl. engines with dual plug heads. The coils are wired so the secondary plugs fire on the exhaust stroke.

As for plugs , stay with autolite/motorcraft double plats.
Takeda had and earlier thread he posted pics of plugs and why to use double plats.
Basicly one side of the engine fires the spark from the center electrode to ground.
The opposite side fires from ground to center electrode.
On non-platinum/single platinum plugs this results in uneven wear on the electrodes.

https://www.ranger-forums.com/showth...ghlight=takeda

I should have explained a bit more, this covers the base. The upshot is, if you use single plats, the electrodes on one side of the engine will wear faster than the other, as such one side wears much faster than the other. It should also be noted that both sides common to a coil fire once for every turn of the engine. Good linky too, I happen to know Bob (Takeda), we've been in touch for some time now. In my travels on the subject (can't remembered where), I came across a guy who pulled his OEM plugs, kept them in order, and inspected, What he found was that one side of the engine had plugs with plat center electrodes, and the other had plat ground electrodes. The part numbers were different. It may have been Bob, I'll ask next time we talk. Kinda a cheapo way of saving a few bucks when new.

On Edit: I had a 94 with the 4.0 that I bought new, the wires finally started to fail at 181,XXX miles and 10 years, 3 months after I bought it and right before I sold it. I'd have to say those Motorcraft wires delivered pretty good service. There were a lot of highway miles in there, better air movement that putting around town, so I'd expect less wire life for a vehicle used heavily in town or somewhere like Arizona. Heat degrades that insulation.

sti wires and atleast adouble platt plug

Is irridum on platinum better?

Also where do I get the STI wires?