Are fine wire plugs worth the price?

A friend (RV10) is ready to replace his plugs (second conditional inspection) and is looking at replacing his REM38E plugs with fine wire version.

Is it worth the extra price?
REM38E go for $16 and I think the fine wire go for $54.

If it is worth changing where is a good place to buy the plugs?


Kent

March 07 AOPA Pilot article

Hi Kent,

I have no idea myself, but there's an article in the March issue of AOPA pilot on this very subject that I just read. It convinced me... although I'm a couple years away from needing to buy plugs.

I had the iridium plugs in my Cherokee and put a set in my new Lyc 0-360 in my 7A. They don't lead foul as easy as the standard plugs and are easier to clean and gap. They also last longer. I like them. 54 bucks sounds cheap to me. I think I paid over 60 for mine.

Roberta

The extra cost of the fine wire plugs would go a ways towards an electronic ignition. I ran Lasar with standard aircraft plugs for 750 hours, and always was fighting a little roughness during runups, sometimes a lot of roughness. And yes, I leaned til almost not running on the ground, and ran LOP in flight.

Since junking the mags and installing dual, direct crank pickup Lightspeeds with auto style plugs, I haven't had the slightest roughness on any ground checks in over 100 hours.

Just something to consider.

I switched to fine wire plugs on just the bottom about 75 hours ago. I haven't had a rough run-up since.

For what it is worth, friend of mine just replaced all his plugs in his O200 in his C150 and now swears that the engine runs smoother at all RPMS.

Fines wires are...fine

Yep, add another happy customer. Since replacing the original plugs with fine wires, never had any more fouling at idle. Certainly recommended.

Martin in Oz