We are lucky our K-Bikes still take a good old fashion Spark plug.( $4-00 Each ) A friend of mine told me this morning that he has to change the spark plugs on his Honda VFR800 and they are close to $25-00 each. Is this possible and what are the benefits ?

platinum and irridium plugs are usually expensive ....for example out here we pay 4.50 for standard plugs ...platinums are around 19.00 and the irridiums are about the same price ....but we have been ripped of for years

And the platinium and iridium plugs have a quite other lifespan than a standard.

It have been a lot of reports on different forums about a much more even engine running at a
steady low throttle when changing to iridium plugs, especially newer boxers which run very lean.

But it`s also been positive responses from K owners.

Inge K.

I think the main purpose of the Iriduium Plugs is to get heaps of money out of people who have it. In the days of pionts ignitions these type of plugs would have been of great value but with the very high voltage electronic ignitions they dont really have a big advantage.

Its one of those things that gets discussed a lot K, When we had the dyno here we always used standard plugs on all the hi perf engines.BCPR7ES we went through boxes of them.

They were supposed to run iridiums but we never had any trouble with the steel plugs(and thats even in 700 hp twin turbo engines). The only engine we couldn't run standards in was nissan sr20det,they will only run on iridiums.

Considering when iridiums first came out you could pay up to $80 each for them.

Interesting that you mantion using them on engines that run on the lean side. When I was endurance racing some bikes would not make an hour unless jetted lean, and that extra pit stop would have cost them another fuel stop and the race win. Some guys were having a lot of trouble with misfires when jetted like this. They solved it by opening the plug gap right up, in effect lengthening the spark. On my bike I also ran lean but I guess not as lean as I didn't get into the misfire issues. Mind you it was a different engine as well. I started by running standard plugs but the heat got the them blistering the sealant they use between the electrode and ceramic when assembling the plugs. Champion were at the races and were always keen to inspect plugs in the pits. Worked out a good cost saving as I would do one practice run on the Friday using standard plugs, then pull them. The Champion guy was always hovering around and would swap my 4 plugs for a whole box of platiniums so he could pull mine apart back at the lab. The platinium did not have the same problem, in fact I never had a plug issue using them.

None of that has much to do with running a brick on the road and I'm sure standard plugs work fine, well they do for me anyway. No doubt with all the emmision rules now the manufacuers are using some of their lessions from those times to run as lean as they can.