[squelchy451]

Could not find the information anywhere. There was a single post that had said it's 0.031-0.032. Is that right?

The engine is stock and I am using the stock NGK equivalent.

[BunkerJ]

Originally Posted by squelchy451

Could not find the information anywhere. There was a single post that had said it's 0.031-0.032. Is that right?

The engine is stock and I am using the stock NGK equivalent.

If you're stock, just use the gap that comes from the factory, which is around 0.03.

[rjd_F30]

Originally Posted by BunkerJ

If you're stock, just use the gap that comes from the factory, which is around 0.03.

+1

They should come pre-gapped but just check to make sure.

[squelchy451]

I've done two spark plug changes in my other cars and they never come gapped correctly. But then again I usually don't get the VW/BMW branded plugs, just the ones directly from Denso or NGK. I also make it a habit of checking the gaps.

Thanks! I'll make sure they're on 0.030".

[IraHayes]

Originally Posted by squelchy451

I've done two spark plug changes in my other cars and they never come gapped correctly. But then again I usually don't get the VW/BMW branded plugs, just the ones directly from Denso or NGK. I also make it a habit of checking the gaps.

Thanks! I'll make sure they're on 0.030".

Going off the NGK website, .032”

http://partcat.com/ngk

[sspade]

Originally Posted by IraHayes

Going off the NGK website, .032”

http://partcat.com/ngk

This is exactly correct.

Running this gap personally. Mods in garage. No issues, ever.

[squelchy451]

Ha! Exact same gap as my GTI.

This is going into a stock car, the F30 is the significant other's and is happily stock. The GTI on the other hand...

[Big.Al]

What gap would you guys recommend for n26 on stage 2 91 octane bm3 tune? I tried .20 and began misfiring in the top end but never threw code and misfired in mid range on .18 btw they are the ngk 97506

[bmwchue]

Originally Posted by Big.Al

What gap would you guys recommend for n26 on stage 2 91 octane bm3 tune? I tried .20 and began misfiring in the top end but never threw code and misfired in mid range on .18 btw they are the ngk 97506

.022

[Fr3sh]

I believe a .18 is for people with bigger turbos

I'm on .22

[LegitF30]

Should I change my gap. I'm on a stage 2 e30 bm3 tune. Right now my plugs are gapped .026
No issues. But would it actually make a difference to close the gap more

[rjd_F30]

Originally Posted by LegitF30

Hey guys what about the gap for a 2014 bmw 328i stage 1 bm3 tune.

Should be alright at the stock gap of ~.030.

[wickedslowF30]

Hi Guys,

Hope I’m in the right place. I think OP asked about stock gap on plugs, but further down the thread I saw others with mods similar to mine asking about reduction, which is where I need advice. I have a ‘14 328i N26 with a Dinan Big Turbo, VRSF charge pipe, VRSF 5” stepped intercooler, Wagner downpipe w/high-flow sport cat, Borla S-type cat back exhaust and Dinantronics software upgrade on stage 4. Immediately after finishing the exhaust we took the car out and got on it hard... had a misfire and went into limp mode. Got it back in the shop and found one of the stock plugs blown to shit. Didn’t really think to change them... the car only has 52k miles. It was 4:30 on a Friday and we were lucky to find a local store that had better plugs that would normally go in an M4. Maybe the original plug was cracked... idk. If it was, it wasn’t giving me any trouble leading up to this. I’d have liked to upgrade the coils at the same time, but we were pushing our luck that late in the day and didn’t think to ask if they had anything. Fast forward a few days... Getting on the highway I went to pass a line of slow moving cars and it cut out on me between 5-6k rpm. No problems like limp mode or anything.. power came right back, but it was unsettling given what had happened the week before. I’ve avoided driving it hard since then, so no repeats. I looked into it and realized we might want to reduce the plug gap since I’m running a bigger turbo and other bolt-ons. I have a new set of Bav high performance coils coming tomorrow and will reduce the gap if you think I should with these mods. I just have no idea what it should be. Any help or insight would be hugely appreciated. Thanks

[BrysonDM]

Originally Posted by wickedslowF30

Hi Guys,

Hope I’m in the right place. I think OP asked about stock gap on plugs, but further down the thread I saw others with mods similar to mine asking about reduction, which is where I need advice. I have a ‘14 328i N26 with a Dinan Big Turbo, VRSF charge pipe, VRSF 5” stepped intercooler, Wagner downpipe w/high-flow sport cat, Borla S-type cat back exhaust and Dinantronics software upgrade on stage 4. Immediately after finishing the exhaust we took the car out and got on it hard... had a misfire and went into limp mode. Got it back in the shop and found one of the stock plugs blown to shit. Didn’t really think to change them... the car only has 52k miles. It was 4:30 on a Friday and we were lucky to find a local store that had better plugs that would normally go in an M4. Maybe the original plug was cracked... idk. If it was, it wasn’t giving me any trouble leading up to this. I’d have liked to upgrade the coils at the same time, but we were pushing our luck that late in the day and didn’t think to ask if they had anything. Fast forward a few days... Getting on the highway I went to pass a line of slow moving cars and it cut out on me between 5-6k rpm. No problems like limp mode or anything.. power came right back, but it was unsettling given what had happened the week before. I’ve avoided driving it hard since then, so no repeats. I looked into it and realized we might want to reduce the plug gap since I’m running a bigger turbo and other bolt-ons. I have a new set of Bav high performance coils coming tomorrow and will reduce the gap if you think I should with these mods. I just have no idea what it should be. Any help or insight would be hugely appreciated. Thanks

Is it possible that it was a fuel cut, which is why it fell on its face for a bit and picked right back up? I'm not to familiar to give you my best google mechanic advice tho lol. just a thought

[KlaKla]

Originally Posted by Big.Al

What gap would you guys recommend for n26 on stage 2 91 octane bm3 tune? I tried .20 and began misfiring in the top end but never threw code and misfired in mid range on .18 btw they are the ngk 97506

BM3 is safe?

[sqwinny]

Stock n20/n26 plugs at a .022 gap have done wonders. Swapping to m3/m4 spark plugs won't make a difference and are known to be less durable than the n20/n26 ones for higher boost.

NGK 97506

[wickedslowF30]

Originally Posted by BrysonDM

Is it possible that it was a fuel cut, which is why it fell on its face for a bit and picked right back up? I'm not to familiar to give you my best google mechanic advice tho lol. just a thought

Just got a chance to get back here... Actually, yeah, it might’ve been a fuel cut. Since asking the question I’ve done some research and it seems to have happened to others with similar, but not exact setup. Same randomness too. They were told that it sounded like a fuel issue, but I never saw a real conclusion. I think Dinan did make a fuel pump upgrade, but they led me to believe I wouldn’t need it for this. Dinan also didn’t recommend reducing the gap on plugs. New, upgraded coils made no difference either. The car is a ‘14 and has 52k miles on it.

[Gold7k]

I have exact same problem. I have 328 n26, stage 2 tune, catless dp
, muffler delete, injen intake and oem 97506 spark plugs ( changed 3k miles ago)
. When I am accelerating it feels like power cutting between
5-6k rpm. I think problem ia more often in warm ambient temperatures.
Stock gapping. May be I should gap them on 0. 22? Sometimes
It throws code (mixture is too lean)

[Gold7k]

Originally Posted by wickedslowF30

Just got a chance to get back here... Actually, yeah, it might’ve been a fuel cut. Since asking the question I’ve done some research and it seems to have happened to others with similar, but not exact setup. Same randomness too. They were told that it sounded like a fuel issue, but I never saw a real conclusion. I think Dinan did make a fuel pump upgrade, but they led me to believe I wouldn’t need it for this. Dinan also didn’t recommend reducing the gap on plugs. New, upgraded coils made no difference either. The car is a ‘14 and has 52k miles on it.

I have exact same problem. I have 328 n26, stage 2 tune, catless dp
, muffler delete, injen intake and oem 97506 spark plugs ( changed 3k miles ago)
. When I am accelerating it feels like power cutting between
5-6k rpm. I think problem ia more often in warm ambient temperatures.
Stock gapping. May be I should gap them on 0. 22? Sometimes
It throws code (mixture is too lean)

[GreenF30N26]

0.32 is the stock gap. I am running BM3 Stage 2 on my 328ix LCI with no issues for almost 2 years on stock NGK @ 0.32.

From PTF Website:
When tuning your BMW N20, N55, S55, N63TU, S63TU it is recommended to go with 1-step colder spark plugs. We've found the NGK SILZKBR8D8S (97506) in the picture attached working great when gapped to appropriate spec. If you'll be running less than 30psi of boost we suggest a 0.022-0.023" gap. We've gone to 0.018" on some cars with 30+psi but in most cases that isn't needed and will cause rough idle in some cases. In most cases though we just go with the 0.022-0.023" gap and call it a day.

However, there is some debate if changing the gap has any benefit for an N20.

[wickedslowF30]

Originally Posted by Gold7k

I have exact same problem. I have 328 n26, stage 2 tune, catless dp
, muffler delete, injen intake and oem 97506 spark plugs ( changed 3k miles ago)
. When I am accelerating it feels like power cutting between
5-6k rpm. I think problem ia more often in warm ambient temperatures.
Stock gapping. May be I should gap them on 0. 22? Sometimes
It throws code (mixture is too lean)

I'll be attempting to reduce the gap this week.. if it makes a difference I'll log in and let you know. I did notice that once the car is hot it idles a little rough in park... hard to describe and this is probably going to sound vague, but the best way I can put it is that there's a little blip in exhaust note every 2-3 seconds – Whereas it's nice and smooth before it warms up. I'm also considering the Dinan fuel pump upgrade kit for N20: https://www.dinancars.com/products/e...arts/R420-0002

[wickedslowF30]

Been meaning to get back here and give you guys an update on the problem I was having with the car falling on it’s face WOT at about 5K+ RPM... Wasn’t an ignition issue at all. There were multiple issues at play here, but ultimately determined that the HPFP was crashing and causing the car to trip up anytime I pushed it hard. Long story short, sort of... the guys that did my work when I was very new to BMW did some things they shouldn’t have – beginning by putting a Dinantronics stage 4 piggyback on an N26. I know we all pretty much know that the N20 and 26 are basically the same motor aside from exhaust and a few minor details in the name of better emissions. There is significance in those details though and I started thinking about it that way when I reached out to Dinan and they responded by saying that they do not do a tuner past stage 1 for the N26. They encouraged me to remove their parts and put the car back to stock ASAP and really weren’t interested in having a conversation. Reading between the lines on that response, I suspect even though the motors are essentially the same from a hardware perspective... considering the N26 emissions, wouldn’t it make sense that the base map is different for the N26? That might explain why the Dinan piggyback had trouble handling signals from the N26 DME. Can anyone here confirm that possibility?

Also, I found that my plugs weren’t exactly gapped right. We had a stock plug get blown to shit on the first test run. It was 430 on a Friday so we had to call around and found a place that had stock plugs for an M car. When I took them out recently to re-gap for the new tune at .022, I found that they were actually gapped to about .027-28ish.

Anyway, I’m happy to report that the problem has been sorted out, but it cost me... I had to remove the Dinantronics tuner and switch to BM3. Navardi has been working on a custom tune for me for the last week and the car is running amazing. My next mods will be the Precision Racewerks ignition upgrade for N2x and a HPFP upgrade to go full E85.

Now I’m trying to figure out what to do about the installers who did my work initially. The Dinan turbo is fine, but they had me buy a $1400 Dinan piggyback that wasn’t intended for my application. I went to them and said I wanted to do it. Told them I had an N20 (I didn’t know at the time that I really had an N26). They didn’t realized a had an N26 until they went to install my new downpipe and it wouldn’t fit because it was for an N20. At the end of the day, isn’t it their job to verify stuff like that? All they had to do was look under the hood at the emissions sticker. I mean, there are serious warranty implications for me in that situation and they’re totally negligent, no? Dinan has a great parallel warranty to BMW. If BMW denies for any reason on a warranty issue, Dinan will honor it. If something happened to my car with the Dinan tuner on it and BMW denied warranty, Dinan would also reject it because they explicitly say the stage 4 tuner is only for the N20. Unfortunate because they’re genuinely nice guys and were really cool about letting me hang around the shop. I don’t want to cause problems for them, but this is a lot of money. Could’ve been way worse if I hadn’t been so intent on fixing the problem with all the research I’ve done.

Also... if anyone is interested in a Dinantronics stage 4 for cheap, let me know! Was only on the car for 3-4 months and driven about 2k miles.