Hey I love this forum so far its been amazingly helpful.. Alright so I changed the coolant which was hideous and terrible looking SH*T BrowN!!! and all gummy and thick!! that had to be draining power.. then i switched 4/6 plugs and i came to the conclusion that holy heck this motor is a pain in the butt to switch plugs on! i had the car jacked up with the light on the top and a ton of the tools out just trying to get at it.. i have 2 left and iam in no way or shape excited for it.. heres where things get strange so i swapped in these new plugs AC Delco Iridium plugs.. 6 freakin bucks a plug expensive suppose to be pretty good, i changed the coolant to a new clean coolant, after doing that it seems like i have lost horse power out of it?!!!! is it possible that because iam not running all 6 of the same plugs things are a little bit strange for the motor and its not adjusting properly? I ll put in the new ones but i was just curious and iam thinking about doing coolant again.. it was so terrible the first 3 times i ran water through it i wonder what its like now... after the car has been run for a bit.. so any quick tips on getting to the 2 rear mounted spark plugs on the passenger side of the car? i also did seafoam to the motor and that made the Check Engine Soon light come on for about 2 days after scared the crap out of me!! but iam interested in tuning it as well.. i just am not sure what needs tuning! any more pointers are great and i took some pictures today of it after i washed it in our lovely 46 degree weather!! but i need to down size them so soon i will get them up.. Like always any information is helpful!

 

you have an angled socket for the plugs right? that would be helpful. Also did you put the orange coolant back into it? I've heard the traditional green stuff is better. Coolant should not affect your power, AC Delco plugs are good, and only having 4 of them should not cause a loss of power either. Were the plugs pre-gapped?

maybe the seafoam had something to do with the 'power loss'

 

Angled Socket? i have a dozen or more sockets for spark plugs and i found one that fit but is there seriously an angled socket? i have an angled ratchet with an ajustable socket that i can attach that can bend up and down iam guessing thats what your talking about? but it is the 3.8 v6 1996 and when i put in the new coolant i picked up some 50/50 pre mixed stuff that was a nice green It has to be related to that seafoam stuff .. iam thinking about doing coolant again today just to get another good cleaning in going to pick up some radiator flush to clean it out because i found chunks on my coolant stick thing that goes into the resevoir.. the SeaFoaming can be the only thing that would change it at all.. should i trying running it through the gas tank? i can go pick up some more at Hedahls... it idles nicely now though.. sits at an even 900 when iam not moving which is what i think it should be at ?!?! that does seem high now that i think of it but my last car was a cavalier it idled at 500-600rpm
What is it suppose to idle at?

 

The car is computer controlled, and the idle is adjusted as needed by the computer. The computer may have been confused by the sea foam, and it will take a while for it to reset its brains. Try not to mix the red and green antifreeze as aventually you wind up with slush. There are special cut down plug sockets available for use in tight locations, and are turned by using an open end or ratcheting box wrench instead of a ratchet handle.

 

Well do you think i should do a 1/3 can of seafoam in the gas tank? Iam going out to a friends house to drain the coolant and hook a hose to the resevoir for the coolant to run cold water through it and see if i can break more particles loose...its still really gummy and then we will put in the other 2 sockets but what iam still wondering is what should the motor be idleing at while were not moving i know you said it adjusts based on situations such as if the motor is really cold and its negative 15 degrees out it will adjust to higher rpm to keep the motor warm yes but on a sunny day like today what should it sit at for its idle.. iam starting to think its high but iam really not sure.. also do you think my horsepower would improve if i put in the new fuel filter, iam guessing the previous owner never replaced it because they didnt do coolant and the oil was pretty dark aswell and it seems like they never cleaned out the inside.. but point is iam trying to get it better than it was so if you know quick methods of tuning i would love to hear them.