well Papa, on a related suject that you've discussed before, today i side gapped a pair of NGK's. I'd been using irridums and got a definate increase in midrage performance. Not huge of course, but esily noticable when A/B'ing them with stock plugs.
Anyways, i hate saying anything about this kinda stuff because people tend to think you're fooling yourself or just plain wacked. But his time i have proof. I will be using side gapped plugs over the iridiums for now on because today i did a test ride with them and was amazed to find 2 very obvious improvments that are documentable. One is the vibration is lessened. I noticed it immediatly when i got on the freeway. but the proof is that my left aftermarket mirror has always vibrated so badly past somewhere between 60-70 MPH that i could not tell what type or even the color of any car in back of me. It was DRASTIC to the point of total uslessness. Today i was able to see clearly at 80 MPH (probably higher but thats as fast as i went) what type and color the cars were, and it was as clear as the right mirror which has always been fine with just minor blur. I mean we're talking a 80% improvment at the very least. And the feel of the bars at speed was smoother than ever.
the second thing was idle. my bike has always fluctuated badly. I come to a stop and it idles around 1500 and over the course of maybe 20 seconds gradually goes down to 1100. But it doesn't just stay solidly at 1100....it flutuates slightly up and down and you can hear the motor sounding less than even to say the least. it got better with irridiums but not a great deal. Today with the side gapped plugs, and i am not exaggerationg i swear, i'd come to a stop light and the tach would immediatly go to 1100 and stay there w/o any fluxuation and the engine sounded perfectly even. It even did that after a high speed freeway run where it usually goes real crazy when i come to a stop. But now it just drops right to 1100 almost instantly and stays for as long as i'm stopped, and it did this at every single stop i made. (probably 20-30 stops) My bike has never even remotly come close to doing that since new.
Now with all the talk of side gapping here and never having seen anyone say they tried it and got equally amazing results, i was almost afraid to say anything for fear of being called a wacko. But i swear this is all true and that both the vibration and idle was vastly improved. Has anyone else found any benefits like this with SG? I'm stoked about this and intend to use side gapped plugs for now on. I may even try side gapping the irridiums. heck, they worked better than the stock plugs when both were unmodified, so maybe side gapped they'll be even better still?
