I have a 98 Rodeo V6 (100,000 miles) and I havent replaced the spark plugs. Is this a special, different lookingplug that is difficult to replace? This is what Ive heard, but Autozone and Advance Auto show that you can use a standard looking plug... NGK, Bosch, etc....

 

Well, I guess it depends on who you talk to.

Technically, that engine has a Delphi Ion Sensing ignition system in which the plugs serve as the knock sensor (it has no other knock sensor) by measuring the level of ions generated just after ignition. So technically, it requires a special Denso PK16PR-L11 or K16PR-P11</span> plug with which this Delphi system is supposedly designed to work. You usually can't find them locally. I got mine here:

http://www.sparkplugs.com/more_info....373318&amp;pid =9628

Without these plugs, the OBDII system will commonly set P0300 misfire codes and it will knock (supposedly). But I ran other plugs I bought at Wal-Mart prior to installing the Densos and to tell you the truth, I couldn't tell any difference at all after changing to the Densos. It ran just the same on the cheap Champions as on the Densos. It did still knock on the Densos. The only thing that would cure that was to thoroughly clean out the EGR pipe through the intake plenum. That totally eliminated the knock on regular gas.

Good luck getting the #6 plug wire out of the tube! That one seems to stick badly for just about everyone. Did for me. I destroyed it getting it out.

Edited by: XR400R

 

Sorry. Forget what I said earlier. I was looking through some info about Isuzu ignition systems &amp; ran across a note that indicated that the Ion Sensing system from Delphi was only added to Isuzus 3.2L engines after the 2000 model year.


I apologize for the mistake.


The way you can be sure if you have an Ion Sensing system is to look for the square Ion Sensing module on top of the intake plenum, as in this picture:


Edited by: XR400R

 

Nope, not on mine. Thank goodness. I 'll just go get some NGK platinums and be done with it. Thanks for the reply.

 

And here I was thinking that after 90k miles maybe I should replace the plugs because .... I've never put any in it, and have no idea when they were last changed before we bought it with 60k on it.

No pings, knocks and it runs just fine - well apart from the water leak I've posted about. [img]smileys/smiley6.gif[/img]