The number on the tire itself is a MAX. PSI when the tire is cold. It is not the recommended driving PSI.

 

You are correct, in many cases, there is nothing "wrong" with the aftermarket junk people buy and bolt on to their vehicles. There is really no problem with it as long as they accept the consequnces of voiding a warranty or compromising factory durability.

The claims made about improvements are hokey at best. Cold air intakes, tuners and exhaust have very marginal effect on naturally aspirated engines. There just isn't the airflow restriction people think in these systems. You would have to be running 5000 rpm in your Expy to start to see any benefit, and that just isn't part of reality. You can advance the timing using a tuner but then you need to run premium fuel, and for what 5-10 peak hp that you can't feel? Oh you can hear the power of the CAI, just like alloros air cleaner mod, but it isn't giving you anything.

I am perfectly OK with people doing mods. It just cracks me up when they believe they got something tangible from them. If spending your money on this stuff makes you feel better, then by all means, participate in that sort of therapy. You are lying to yourself though if you think you have actually made the vehicle substantially better than it came from the factory.

Anybody that buys into the notion that changing spark plugs from OE to a fancy version, will lead to better performance, is only fooling themself.

 

My usual response to the "better MPG/performance spark plug" is, "a spark is a spark is a spark."

Now don't get me wrong, there are better and worse grades of spark plugs as far as quality goes. Some will last longer than others or have better grades of metal used in them. But that doesn't improve MPG or performance unless the old plugs were worn out to begin with. In a case such as that, you're returning to the original horsepower level that was lost, you're not increasing it.

 

Did you follow the details of the lawsuit at all?

 

I think people have gained many misconceptions from racing application of parts. In a race engine, why do you need an ignition system that is capable of jumping a 2 ft gap three times per second? It demonstrates that it has the capacity to jump a .0025 gap 20,000 times per minute. Would we gain any performance by using this type ignition system in a factory engine, even if we added fancy plugs? NO!
The need for these crazy design plugs with huge gaps is very limited to a specific application. The aplication is igniting alcohol or igniting extremely high octane racing fuel at extremely low compression.(Ie. very high boost turbo charged engine at low RPM on racing fuel.) 87 octane gasoline at around 9:1 compression, is easily ignited by a stock plug.
If an aftermarket plug gave a performance advantage which would in turn translate to a fuel economy advantage, the manufacturer would use it to help the CAFE numbers.

 

What!!! How dare you suggest the engineers at Ford knew what they were doing

I try to look at these "improvements" in the light of what I can really expect to gain from them. What do I have to pay, what am I really getting. The manufacturers of these parts are in the business to make money. They advertise their claims trying to get people to buy their products. Anyone who has been on the planet long enough to legally drive a car should know that exaggerated claims are a part of life. Look closely at what you are spending your money on. Don't fall prey to the hype, there is a lot of it out there.

 

I'm just going to add that, like everything else in America, more companies than not use big advertising to convince buyers that their product is a must-have, and the growing lack of critical media literacy in younger people just adds to the mayhem.

Of course I believe that -some- aftermarket products are better than OEM. Some aren't - maybe a lot of them aren't, but they might give more of a boost short-term before they wear out or screw something up.

I don't adhere to sticking to products merely because the manufacturer originally spec'ed them, as in oils, tires, shocks, and a myriad of other things that I've researched.

But anyone arguing Ford is using the cheapest parts, vs. the simplest and most reliable, hasn't ever worked in the industry. The truth is customer bring-backs, and dissatisfaction, can cost a manufacturer who is in it for the LONG term way more money then they could ever save with putting the cheapest parts on vehicles.

And, typically, the big advertising money will be put out on things customers can easily change (so K&N filters, the myriads and mind-numbing numbers of spark plugs that have claimed to be awesome over the last 20 years, gasolines, tires, etc.) vs., say, tie-rod-ends (those who know - know which the better ones are, but it's not like you'll see commercials for them on television or in very many magazines).

Case in point (and ones I learned the HARD way): Spark plug wires. Aftermarket spark plug wires, from brands I know to brands I've never heard of, come in awfully splashy graphic-designed boxes. They very nearly convince you that they are the latest and greatest technology. Yet two different fully-warranted sets failed my F-150 in relatively short order (much shorter than the typical set lasts a OEM truck). The guys here, through a collective of data and input, have all come to the conclusion that, for the modular V-8's at least, the Ford wires really were the end-all, be-all for long-term happiness (sure, brand new sets of large aftermarket wires would the the ticket for a drag-racing motor, but I only want to buy one set, TYVM). Sure enough, despite my disbelief in something so simpel as spark plug wires, the newest set (and lasting set) of Ford wires (Ford racing wires - I just had to go a little bigger) are outlasting the other makes in durability.

The same would go for plugs. The plugs on modular V-8 trucks are difficult enough to change out, so I don't want to have to take the chance of getting better performance for 20k miles, or less, from the latest plug maker on the market - a manufacturer who doesn't have fleets of millions that can NOT be all brought back before 60k or 100k miles for worn-out plugs if their business model is to stay viable. The ones Ford designed, and used, have proved their hardiness an honest million-times-over compared to ANY aftermarket plug in the modular V-8's. While I do think it respectable to be the guinea pig as a tester of new parts and ideas, and i have done my share, i don't wish to do it with the plugs as the head-design is a weak one to begin with, thus changing out more plugs, more often, only adds to the wear in that area.

The 250k mile, and 300k mile, Ford trucks whose owners knew nothing more than just following the Ford recommendations are testament, enough, to one end of what parts can be (durability). While there is the other end - performance - you've really, REALLY got to be careful with the balance of what you're getting in the short-term vs. what you may be giving up in the long term (e.g. high silicate counts in the oils of vehicles that use high-flowing "AWESOME PERFORMANCE RACING XXX" air filters, and premature wear on spark plug threads through changing plugs more often to achieve the higher performance). If it's meant to make a stock engine faster, it generally isn't meant to keep it around as long. You simply cannot re-engineer what you've got into the quality and tolerances of, say, a BMW motor by buying simple add-on parts. With pain-staking studying and metal-work you can make our motors better (blue-printing and balancing, cleaning up the ports from mass-manufacturing roughness, etc.), but for most parts the aftermarket companies aren't telling you the truth, or at least not the whole story.

Edited: spelling errors and at least one too many commas.

 

See now? I just figured everybody already knew this.

 

Wow, you quoted 745 words just so that you could reply with nine of your own!

 

And I didn't kill a single tree in the process

 

no, but you probably used up some coal...........

 

Got a link to back that up?

 

Okay, which are the best OEM plugs for 5.4 Triton Expeditions then?

 

There's only one OEM plug to choose from for your engine, model, and year, you don't get another choice since OEM is a choice. The spark plug part number is listed in your owner's manual.

 

Aren't there two brands that Ford uses as OEM supplier on their vehicles?

Motocraft & Autolite?
(If I remember correctly.)

Would the original replacement plugs be considered the absolute best plugs to use?