hey guys I'm just about to do a tune up on the 88 3AC Tercel before she gets on the road!
but have the following questions:
What is the best oil brand and/or weight to use? My car has 299,000kms on her, this is going to be winter driven (I can't wait for snow btw )
Which spark plugs to go with? Are there any pregapped that will drop in? My motor is completely stock
What tire pressures to use for stock 13" all seasons (my prev yota celica used 34psi front, 32psi rear)
I've had XLNT luck with Valvoline 10W-40 Maxlife for high-mileage motors. It's a synthetic blend which has sealers, which worked for me. I would presume that similar products are available from most companies.
I know others have recommended diesel/tractor oil (Rotella for example ?).
T4WD augury?
"Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?' Let us go and make our visit." T.S. Eliot - "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
"Now and then we had a hope that, if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates." Mark Twain
ARCHINSTL wrote:I've had XLNT luck with Valvoline 10W-40 Maxlife for high-mileage motors. It's a synthetic blend which has sealers, which worked for me. I would presume that similar products are available from most companies.
I know others have recommended diesel/tractor oil (Rotella for example ?).
I really like Valvoline products. I just never buy synth blends as all it takes to be labeled so is for a tech to walk up to a million gallon vat of dino oil an put one drop of synth in and presto, you have a blend. Good luck getting any company who makes synth blends to divulge the dino/synth ratio. I now use Mobil 1 High Mileage full synth oil in 10-40 weight. If I lived somewhere that it snowed a bunch I might go with 10-30w in the winter. Then back to 10-40w for the other half of the year. In all reality, unless you are flirting with temps that are waay below freezing for a large part of the winter, using the 10-40w HM M1full time would be just fine.
If you are not going to spend for fancy plugs ND & NGK are fine choices. The NGK V-power is a very cheap upgrade from their standard plugs and they work quite well. I went with the NGK Iridium plugs in one heat range colder. Did not expect to notice much difference, but my t4wd will now putter around parking lots at around 400 RPM like a happy little tractor. It is much harder to stall, be it crawling around at uber low RPMs or when engaging the clutch when starting out. Who would have thunk it?
4wdchico wrote:The NGK V-power is a very cheap upgrade from their standard plugs and they work quite well. I went with the NGK Iridium plugs in one heat range colder. Did not expect to notice much difference, but my t4wd will now putter around parking lots at around 400 RPM like a happy little tractor. It is much harder to stall, be it crawling around at uber low RPMs or when engaging the clutch when starting out. Who would have thunk it?
Really? I never would have expected such a dramatic change in performance!
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4wdchico wrote:The NGK V-power is a very cheap upgrade from their standard plugs and they work quite well. I went with the NGK Iridium plugs in one heat range colder. Did not expect to notice much difference, but my t4wd will now putter around parking lots at around 400 RPM like a happy little tractor. It is much harder to stall, be it crawling around at uber low RPMs or when engaging the clutch when starting out. Who would have thunk it?
Really? I never would have expected such a dramatic change in performance!
Really. I have never heard of changing plugs making such a difference in driveability. Considering that the plugs that I replaced with the Iridiums were a perfectly sharp set or NGK V's with a whole 1200 miles on them makes it even more odd. I was prepping the car for a long run of high temp desert driving and wanted to try a set of colder plugs & on a whim went for the bling plugs.
4wdchico wrote:The NGK V-power is a very cheap upgrade from their standard plugs and they work quite well. I went with the NGK Iridium plugs in one heat range colder. Did not expect to notice much difference, but my t4wd will now putter around parking lots at around 400 RPM like a happy little tractor. It is much harder to stall, be it crawling around at uber low RPMs or when engaging the clutch when starting out. Who would have thunk it?
Really? I never would have expected such a dramatic change in performance!
Really. I have never heard of changing plugs making such a difference in driveability. Considering that the plugs that I replaced with the Iridiums were a perfectly sharp set of NGK V's with a whole 1200 miles on them makes it even more odd. I was prepping the car for a long run of high temp desert driving and wanted to try a set of colder plugs & on a whim went for the bling plugs.
Wow - those Iridium NGKs are roughly $7 each! The V-Power upgrade-from-standard are about $2 each.
Tom M.
T4WD augury?
"Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?' Let us go and make our visit." T.S. Eliot - "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
"Now and then we had a hope that, if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates." Mark Twain
I'm running Mobile 1 0W30 synth summer/winter for around 12K miles as an experiment...oil use went to 3K per qt from 5K...but after replacing the dist o-ring this might improve some. Might try the Pure One PL30001 filter as an upgrade...big ass filter, but it fits. Can get these at Amazon for a good price. I use the v-power plugs.
The Bosch Plat plugs can cause pinging with the regular emissions setup on the 3AC?
Give a boy a gun-give a biatch a cell phone-and pretty soon you almost got yourself a police state.
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T4WD augury?
"Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?' Let us go and make our visit." T.S. Eliot - "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
"Now and then we had a hope that, if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates." Mark Twain
takza wrote:I'm running Mobile 1 0W30 synth summer/winter for around 12K miles as an experiment...oil use went to 3K per qt from 5K...but after replacing the dist o-ring this might improve some. Might try the Pure One PL30001 filter as an upgrade...big ass filter, but it fits. Can get these at Amazon for a good price. I use the v-power plugs.
The Bosch Plat plugs can cause pinging with the regular emissions setup on the 3AC?
To better protect the crank/rod bearings in your engine I strongly suggest that you consider using Mobil 1 0W-40 European Car Formula if you want to have use an oil that has a zero wt. rating on it's low temp end. It would be interesting to see if your oil use goes down with the 0W-40wt oil.
After I do my clutch and replace my rear main seal & also do the dizzy o-ring, I'm going to use the Mobil 1 0W-40, European Car Formula oil myself. I don't know that my rear main seal is leaking, but I know that the dizzy is. My front main seal and cam seal have been recently replaced.
I won't put a bosch plug in ANYTHING that does not require it as OE. I've fixed more than a couple recently tuned cars by pulling them out and replacing with OE recommended. Depending on use factors, the cheapest plugs replaced yearly isn't a bad strategy. Iridiums are nice but are a little overkill for a Terc.
I have never found the pricey special plugs worth it, they do not seem to last any longer, got ping and fouled more often. I find the standard NGK works the best. And they are also the cheapest
"I've had XLNT luck with Valvoline 10W-40 Maxlife"
Yes, absolutely the best.
I run stock NGK plugs, no problems running in our very cold winters--but I keep em clean. Every few K miles I will check em for fouling and polish the electrodes with a wire wheel if needed.
"I'm high on the real thing: Powerful gasoline, a clean windshield, and a shoeshine."
Petros wrote:I have never found the pricey special plugs worth it, they do not seem to last any longer, got ping and fouled more often. I find the standard NGK works the best. And they are also the cheapest
On an older car it's mostly just a feel good part. If you have a cylinder that fouls plugs, that's where I would recommend the cheapies as often as needed.
Most anything built since the mid to late 90's has plat's or now more commonly iridiums as stock. They are well worth it as they are a 100k plug without gap change. I've seen them go 170k before misfiring. If your modern car calls for them don't cheap out. You might end up needing a coil or coils if you do.
Don't bother with other gimmick plugs that make all kinds of claims. Especially the bosch +4's. If your engine burns any oil, they are like a carbon trap. My last tune up was pulling out the bosch +2's on a grand prix and putting the proper delco iridiums in. Improvement was verified by scan tool misfire graph.
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