I am looking into changing my spark plugs. Is NGK Iradium or NGK Ruthenium plugs better? Or should I just go with Bosh double platinum? Any suggestions? Is there any real difference? Has anyone installed a cool air intake? Or a snorkel? How have they helped or did they hinder the Patriot? Is there any real mods for the Patriot?
Changing spark plugs and engine mods
GianniBgood
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I am looking into changing my spark plugs. Is NGK Iradium or NGK Ruthenium plugs better? Or should I just go with Bosh double platinum? Any suggestions? Is there any real difference? Has anyone installed a cool air intake? Or a snorkel? How have they helped or did they hinder the Patriot? Is there any real mods for the Patriot?
2014 Sport 4X4 FD2 Off-road, Falken Wildpeak A/T, All weather & convienance group, EVIC, ATC, Hitch
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I believe that I'm running NGK Iridium plugs currently. The only real difference between copper plugs and any of the others is their life. None of them will give more power or anything. How much longer they will last is debatable. I'm sure someone here has added an aftermarket cold air intake, but I can't recall anyone mentioning it. If you really look at the Patriot's air intake, it's pretty much a cold air intake already, and the only thing you would notice if you installed an aftermarket one is that it'll be louder, because you'll hear the sucking noise. It absolutely will not add any power. Only real hindrance it'll add is that you'll have to relocate the ECU, since it mounts to the top of the air cleaner housing. I haven't heard of anyone anywhere adding a snorkel... the Patriot's already capable of going thru 19" of water...anything deeper and you'll be flooding the interior.
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I would stick with what it calls for if your engine is stock......I change mine every 25,000.....One thing I noticed was after buying mine new in 2014 I checked my plug gap when it was new and set them all to .043 with the stock NGK's and just for the heck of it checked them again at 18,000 and the gap went from .043 to .046 all 4 plugs were identical......So for me I now check the gap on every vehicle I have at 10,000 mile intervals.
The first time I changed the plugs on my 2014 the gaps on the factory plugs were all over the place. I think I reported that on here, but I'm not going to go digging for that post. I don't know all that much about auto engineering, but my through process leads me to believe that the gaps should decrease as deposits build up in the engine. I wonder why the gap increases? Maybe the electrode is being burned away?
2014 Sport 4X4 FD2 Off-road, Falken Wildpeak A/T, All weather & convienance group, EVIC, ATC, Hitch
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That's exactly what happens. With every spark, a little bit of metal is blasted off.
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The precious metal plugs usually last a lot longer between changes, but... I do know that some of the guys running Hemis have complained on the Charger forums about sometimes getting more mis-fires, especially under WOT. Just know that the OE coils spec'd on the Hemis, as well as the 4 cylinders in the Patriot don't have enough voltage to overcome the additional resistance of some precious metal plugs under WOT at times. Probably not as much of a problem with most stock Patriots as it is with the Hemis. Copper has lower resistance, takes less voltage to fire, but wear a lot faster. On an engine like in the Patriot, a child could change them in 30 minutes or less. For me, the economics of spending $15 - $20 per plug, and running them 60 - 100K, versus spending $2 per plug and doing them every 30K as recommended just doesn't make sense. I know even changing all 16 plugs on my Hemi ($32 vs $250-$300+) is a no-brainer every 30K, even if the precious metal plugs lasted 6X as long. They are actually pretty easy to get as, just 4X as many! Lol.
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