A little warning about Bosch platinum plugs. I will never buy these again. Here's the story. Last year I put new Bosch platinum plugs into my 92 civic VX. I had them in for less than 1 month until the car started developing problems - stumbling, running rough. Did some diagnostic but I eliminated the plugs as a problem because they were basically new. I let the car sit for a year because I had no time to mess around with it. This past October I narrowed the problem down to 1 spark plug. One plug was not firing or intermittently firing because it was defective. I could spin the porcelain even though the base was fixed. Instead of changing all the plugs (because they were new) I replaced only the defective one.

Fast forward to today. One the drive home from work today I was experiencing similiar problems. These plugs have less than 5K on them. By the time I got home there was a loud ticking sound coming from the engine. Popped the hood and one of the plug wires looks as if it popped up out of its seat. Pulled it off and here's what I found.

The boot is severely charred. I can rotate the porcelain and move it up/down about 3mm!!! Combustion was passing through the plug and into the plug wire boot!!! Which is why the boot was burnt. You can see in the pic that the center electrode is contacting the ground electrode! The ticking sound was the porcelain moving up and down under vacuum/compression. I checked the other plugs and another one has the same problem although not as bad. The remaining two you can see combustion just starting to seep through.

The civic VX is Honda's "Lean Burn" technology. These engines run hot but nothing that any plug shouldn't be able to handle.

 

That's fucked dude. Good to know. I had similar problems with some Delco plugs in my old Grand Am, over a period of a month, 4 out of 6 developed problems with the porcelain, cracking, loosening, etc. But.... my boots didnt melt like that, sorry to see that.

 

Delco plugs are ****, don't use them. They are made by NGK and even the NGK reps say their garbage. They build them to GM's spec and their spec is ****. They have no grooves in the porcelin and they arc down the side of the plug. As for the bosch plugs I buy as few parts from crappy tire as possible for those exact reasons. I use NGK plugs mainly and have never had a problem. They may be a bit expensive but they're good.

BAMMMMMMMMMMMMM peanut butter and jammmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!

 

I'm curious as to whether Honda specifies a specific plug per cylinder? My Insight has a true lean burn engine and requires a different plug on each cylinder. For the three cylinder engine, there are 4 possible plugs that could be in each cylinder. The plug you need depends on how the threads are cut on the cylinder and plug. Does the VX use a similar system? If so, then the position of the electrode is vital and the proper Honda plugs must be used. Otherwise the electrode is in the wrong position and the plug will be eaten up by detonation (as is suggested by your ceramics coming loose).

 

I don't believe the VX requires specific plugs for each cylinder. It does use different ones from a standard civic but they are the same for all four cylinders. I've got 450K on the car and I've used these plugs in the past without issues. Plug gap is same all around 0.39 to 0.44.

There are not much options for plugs for the VX. NGK does not make plugs for the VX. I just replaced plugs with Champion Platinums. So far runs great.

 

I found it interesting that you can't get an NGK plug for that car so I went on our Napa prolink site. It gave me a few options to pick from depending on what the engine code was. It gave me a choice of D15B7, D15B8, and D15Z1. If you can give me the engine info I'll see if I can get you a NGK part number. Not that you need the spark plugs anymore but I just thought I'd look anyway. Like our teacher at trade school told us some parts counter people are really nothing more than monkeys in suits. I know first hand, I have to deal with them on a daily basis.

 

It's a D15Z1. I'm guessing the only difference is the heat range but that's only my guess.

 

You're probably right, the only difference between them is probably just the heat range. I found the NGK part number for those spark plugs. It's NGK 4043 and our Napa store here has 10 in stock. This is what it shows up as on the prolink site.

Line Code NGK
Part Number 4043
Description Spark Plug
Attribute Product Features:NGK Spark Plugs Feature Corrugated Ribs to Reduce Flashover, Triple Gasket Sealing to Prevent Combustion Gas Leakage, Trivalent Metal Plating for Anti-Seizing and Anti-Corrosion Properties as well as,Thread Size:14 mm,Hex Size:5/8 ",Reach Length:3/4 ",Seat Type:Gasket
Comment @Gap .044"@ w/ Engine Code D15Z1