I agree, I grew up with wire spark plug gapping tools and never had a plug/gap issue. They are harder to find nowdays and cost more than the disk type, but in the long run they are well worth it......

Dusty

can't you only gap the sparkplugs that have a moveable grounding electrode? i believe my ngk's had a solid ground electrode and the only way to gap them would be to actually bend the electrode outwards, hoping not to mess up the center electrode. i was also told that if the grounding one doesn't move than the center one will actually push into the sparkplug and possibly damage it.this has always confused me whenever someone is talking about gapping their ngk's or denso's. aren't they kind of similar to the bosch platinums(and i know you don't regap those)?

I had the same problem w/ mine at 21K. [backfire and garbles @ boost/WOT] pulled the plugs & they were @ .052. I closed them to .035-.040. Is this too tight?? Would opening them to 0.45 settle the idle a little or no?

I hope you meant .045, and it depends on your type of plugs, but yes, .045 is a good starting point in general.

Dusty

? moveable ground electrode... they are all "moveable"... if you bend them... and not all NGK's are solid ground, many have a copper core (but that is for heat transfer)... so the hardness of the material is different than a standard non-copper core... but...

as for "bending" or "moving" the ground electrode... if you buy a pre-gapped plug... then it's been gapped to the OEM spec... or whatever the plug is sold as (which is typically what the OEM's use)... BUT - you can gap iridium or platinum, or double platinum, or fine wire plugs... you have to be careful not to touch the center eletrode or the pad on the ground electrode (they are just laser welded pads of material, and can be "knocked" off if you try and gap your spark plug with a screw driver!)... hahaha...

the center electrode will not "move into" the insulator... if you do that, then you are far more of a man than most! trust me, I've seen the manufacturing process - you are not going to push the center electrode into insulator on an NGK plug... not by gapping it.

so... you CAN gap plugs, just be careful in doing so. if you don't feel comfortable doing it - DON'T!

and finally-
as far as the gap - 0.045" is about 1.1mm... typically DC OEM runs a 1.1mm or a 1.3mm (0.045-0.052"). Actually - a larger gap should improve your idle stability... but this engine seems to not like larger gaps from what I hear...