Spark Plugs exploding! Help! (S52)
 

Hey guys,

So I went to Laguna Seca and everything went awesome. After a full day at the track the car was amazing, and felt perfect. At the very end of the next to last session though, I get a horrible misfire and have to pull in.

Shut the car off as soon as I could, ran the code - cylinder 6. I park, take the covers off and see a fried coil (I mean, fried - warped and smoking, with the core embedded in the body of the coil). I disassemble the whole mess, and find a spark plug (OEM, BOSCH FGR8KQE) just lying there with a hole through the center of the hex which is still firmly in the head, the silicone from the boot melted and essentially just the core left there which looks like it was found after a plane crash.

I clean it all up, extract what was left of the plug out of the head. Miraculously find someone around with an M3 - buy a coil and a plug off them, run the engine briefly to force any crap lying in the spark plug hole out. Then replace the spark plug and the car seems to be running ok, doesnt immediately stall out like when you run it without the spark plug.

I limped it to NAPA without the boot with the injector unplugged. Got a new boot, threw it all together and it seems to be running just fine, no noticeable roughness or anything, so it appears as if I literally dodged a bullet made out of the core of the damn FGR8KQE.


Big question is - I gota get the damn ticking time bombs out of the car and I need new plugs. Does anyone know of a 100% recommended replacement that will perform as well as the BOSCH's without the danger of the porcelain getting obliterated in the car (I heard of a number of cases of failure with BOSCH, so I am looking for a replacement).


Thanks guys!

-Artem

hi artem,i have NGK iridium on my trackdays ti (M52B28),working great until 7200 rpm
and you can choose a lower heater grade than the OEM one for better performance and less temp for the head of the engine

Thanks sam! Good to know! Are those the bkr6equip's? I might throw bkr6ekub's in that I had in my z4 temporarily while the other boschs started leaking... I should have taken precautions as soon as that happened!

the NGK iridium model for my engine are BKR6EIX
the lower grade is BKR7EIX

Update:
Ran a compression test, got numbers around 180PSI across the board (whew).

Pulled all the BOSCH plugs out, put in NGK BKR6EQUP, runs beautifully. My advice is if you have BOSCH plugs - get those NGKs in there.

I'll second the NGK's, Artem. Been running those since the swap 7 years (!!!) ago. Glad you got it all sorted out and running like it's supposed to..

How'd you like Laguna Seca? I've been 3 times since November, it just keeps getting better for me.

I'll agree on NGK's over Bosch. Had too many issues with Bosch in various BMW's including the loss of the ground electrode (prongs) into multiple cylinders on an M62TU. Never have had nor seen that issue occur with NGK's

Thanks guys! Wish I had known before throwing those in there.. oh well, it just cost me 20 mins at the track in the end.

Laguna Seca was pretty awesome! I got a time of 1:58:23 on my last lap before failure, and I was only doing better, almost 1:57 when that damn plug blew up!

"BOSCH"

Yup. Once a quality brand... once.

I'll 3rd NGK.

t