Platnium Plugs for 1987 300E
 

Hey I was driving my car the other day and when I hit a fairly steep hill my car started to shake and rattle a little bit, so the first thing I thought was Sparkplugs. THere are a few other things than just that, but that was the main thing. I was hopeing someone here could tell me if the 4x Plantnium or 2x Platnium plugs would be ok to put in it, I read that they burn fuel more efficently. and BTW is the spark plug gap .032? and whats the torque required?

So if anyone has had any experience with this or has an idea please post it :D

Thank You :)

I recommend you only use copper plugs on the M103. .032" will work and you can probably gap out to .038" with the stock coil. An idea is to get an aftermarket heavy duty coil so that you can gap even more. Torque to 20nm for the M103.
Reference (among others):

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?threadid=25896&highlight=spark+plug+torque

Cheers, Andrew Seidel.

Stick to the copper core plugs
 

Stick to the stock (copper core) plugs. I had put the +4 PlatPlugs in just a month or so ago, but I did not like them. Switched back.

I've tried both platinum and copper cores in the 103 and couldn't tell the difference.

Shaking and rattling up a long hill...

Is your fuel filter reasonably new?
Are you running Premium?

I'd throw in a can of fuel injector cleaner and a tank of gas from a reputable supplier.

Platinum Plugs
 

I too, would recommend sticking to standard spark plugs. I tried platinum plugs in my Volvo and was very disappointed. After a short time the idle got rough and the car was hard to start. I just bought some NGK plugs to try in my 1988 260e.

This is what happened when platinums were installed in my car . This caused a exhaust valve failure .

You,ve gotten good advice here, except I wouldn't go out as far as .038 for gap on these engines unless you have a hotter coil. You won't get a good idle.

The reason the platinums don't work well in this engine is; first the picture above says all about the first reason, second the center electrode is too thin producing a thin spark which effects idle quality. The copper core has a fatter center electrode which produces a fatter spark.

I gap copper core Bosch plugs at .034, and it works good for me with stock ignition.

Have a great day,

I put platnum 2's in my 300E...
 

but after reeding these posts, I'm thinking I'll put the copper core plugs in. Where can I get a set of these. The plugs the car had were old Bocsh Sups. It looked like the car had not had a tune up in 6 years!

You can get the plugs here in fastlane. See link at the top of the page.