Hello. My son has bought a car and we are doing a little maintenance on it. I do light mechanic work on my own vehicles and have replaced spark plugs before. For this car there are only 2 choices of plugs: OEM at $22 a piece and NGK at $12. So we are getting the NGK the only problem is that the gap comes to wide. They are iridium so you have to be ultra careful. Any safe way to reduce the gap other than putting in a vice and tapping on it? They come at .44 and need to be .36. Any harm from just putting them in as is? Thank you for your time.

id put them in as is and seee how it runs. wider gap means more juice to make a good spark. if it runs poorly, no power, smokes or misses or whatever you can regap. you probably wont have any trouble.

Most gapping tools have a place to bend the bar without tapping on it looks like a 2 pronged fork!

For my boat plugs, (iridium), it is recommended to use the tool that has rounded feelers rather than a normal feeler gauge.

The iridium is welded on. Just hold them in your hand and tap them on something solid like a bench vise. It wont take much to bend the gap.

Try to make sure to keep the L shaped piece Parallel to the face of the post.

Slots on the top used for adjusting the gap without tapping.

XX

If it was me I would regap them to the makers specs. You're only changing it .08.

I was told not to change the gap on iridium plugs. supposed to screw them up some way or another.

Then you should be using the OEM part. When you change the part to an aftermarket part you should follow the part manufacturer's specs. It's a modification thing.

Maybe should be using the OEM anyway, I guess there are reasons they had a special plug manufactured? Piston clearance?