[n2djazz]

I didn't download the sw for my cable today because I had another plan in mind. I read somewhere on one of these bimmer forums about the importance of using dielectric grease. So this AM I anxiously pick up some on the way to work. After work I pulled the coil and plug for cylinder one. I have a work car so the engine of the 135 was dead cold. I had one of the old plugs lying around. I inserted it into the coil boot out of curiousity to see if it makes contact with the business end of the coil. Well it doesn't. I measure about a 3mm gap between the plug and the terminal inside the boot. That's a huge, power-robbing gap !!!

I forced the plug into the boot so it would touch the terminal but it would spring back when I released the pressure. i figured the coil boot may need a bit of stretching if you get my point. I got a pair of wide pair of needle nose pliers that could fit inside the boot. I opened the pliers inside the boot to stretch it wide a bit in several directions taking care not to tear or puncture the boot. Of course the boot being made of some kind of tough rubber would spring back when I released the pliers.

Next I got a cotton swab (aka Q-tip) applied some dielectric grease to the tip and coated the inside of the coil boot...the part that fits over the spark plug. I also coated the ceramic part of the plug body. I was careful not to get the dielectric grease on the terminal inside the coil boot or on the spark plug terminal. I repeated the same (boot stretching and dielectric grease application) for all coils / plugs, buttoned it up and started the car. It fired up as I expected, and it sounded different in a VERY promising way.

I took it for a drive but it was near dark and our sheriff's dept is all caught-up on their crime so they laser the highway looking for 'donations.' Well I gave at the office so I didn't summon up all the king's horses and all the king's men. But it sure feels promising. Tomorrow I will do a test run when I'll have a better chance of spotting the cops.

If this procedure works, I will hypothesize that over time the factory dielectric grease dries out and contributes to the gap inside the coil boot. That gap between the plug terminal and coil coupled with the wearing of the original plug gap would add up to one tough nut to crack.

Looking back, when I call myself 'changing the plugs,' I exacerbated that gap between coil and plug. I should have used the dielectric grease but I didn't know better. I really hope I'm onto something. If so, I wonder how many coils people have replaced that were not defective but just needed some dielectric grease to get back to spec. There will be those who say that if the replaced coils corrects the problem then the old coil must have been bad. I would rebut and say maybe the new coil had a light coat of dielectric grease already applied that they were not aware of. But I don't care to get into a pissing contest. I just want to fix this issue and post so others can learn from my mistakes. From what I figure, we can't all have defective cars !!! And I have a saying that goes something like this. If you have a tough problem, it'll take a long time to figure out but only two seconds to fix it. Well if this works, my maxim will pan out. I'll coin the phase and call it Jazz's Law of Fupahs (lol.)

FYI, dielectric grease is not conductive. It is conducive to keeping the spark from shorting to ground through the boot which is why it is applied both inside the boot and on the ceramic (insulator) part of the spark plug body.