idle surges and sputtering

[xavier3jr]

when i first got my car it idles about 1000-1100 now it lidles like 700-800 and it idles rough as hell.....and when i floor it on take off and second gear it sputters like crazy what could be the proablem i changed my spark plugs like a week ago, auto zone told me to gap them at .044 is that wrong?? it was missfireing like hell before i changed them and when i changed them it turns out 2 of my spark plugs were cracked.... so i duno wut the proably could be it ran fine right after i changed them and hten the next day it started running like shit

[kjewer1]

Judging by your email adress I guess you have a non-turbo. You guys should post this stuff so I dont have to look around, something sparkplug gap varies significantly between the turbo and NT cars

That being said, stock idle should be around 800, not 1100. .44 sounds a bit big but I dont know the range for the NT cars. I would try 40 and see if that helps. Going smaller wont usually hurt performance on a NT car. Its just that going bigger "exposes" the spark more so you have a better chance of getting the mixutre lit up quickly and cleanly. So you typically want the largest gap you can run without misfires. What you describe might be a misfire, so try gapping the pluf smaller. Also, what kind of plugs are you using? You should be able to get away with just about anything on a NT motor, but if you're using something real fancy, it might be worth trying stock type plugs just to see if it makes a difference on your particular motor/setup. At any rate it seems like new plugs at least affected the problem in SOME way, so I would focus your energy there.

Another thing to look at is wires. I'll describe something that is a theory of mine, but I havent proved it. I'm willing to bet that if you have borderline bad plug wires, and you change plugs, it will run better for a short time. The new plugs have a low resistance, so even with bad wires you get a decent enough spark. But over time the weaker spark allows more shit to build up on the plug, raising the resistance again, and the bad wires cant deliver enough energy to jump the shitty gap. Same could go for varying gap too. Try a new set of stock wires, or whatever people go with on NT cars (on turbo cars I only trust stock and NGK!).