ok so here I go, I was looking at replacing my valve stem seals because I burn a little oil every once in a while when I sit at an idle for awhile, then take off. I got down to where I took the spark plugs out and there is no sign of oil on any of them, and I tested the PCV valve and it is almost completely clogged, my question is do you think it is possible that the seals are okay and I just need to replace the PCV valve? cause that would save me a lot of work that I don't really have time to do. Also any recomendations on spark plugs for the 3.5? since it is a good 3-4 hour job just to get to the plugs.

I think that a clogged pcv system would cause the engine to run rough but not to smoke. As far as plugs, the guys here, at least for the gen 1, recommend ngk. I, due to the length of the job would certainly install a platinum of some sort. Anyone here have input on iridium plugs?

I have NGK also and they seem to work a lot better than the stock mitsu plugs that have a platinum tip.

I once installed Split fires and would never do that again.

I changed from the stock NGK to NGK Laser irridium (NGK PART No. ifr 6t-11). I subsequently had the Pajero dynotuned again and now have 145 HP on the rear wheels. The prevous best was around 138 HP on the same Dyno. Altitude is 5000 Feet above sea level. Vehicle is a 5 door 3.5 DOHC Pajero with 140 on the clock. There are other modifications but in answer to your question the irridium plugs were expensive but worth it. When changing your plugs use some carburettor cleaner and old toothbrush to clean the intake
plenum and throttle body Air Flap. I got tired of cleaning this all the time and eventually blocked the pipe on the intake side and installed a K&N breather on the motor side. No more junk being sucked into the plenum and runs exactly the same as before.

i cant speak for the iridium plugs , but i do know about the ngk's. there is nothing else to run in a mitsu vehicle. ive tried all the others, ive been an autolite fan for years and they wont run worth a crap for more than like 1 month at best. ever since i learned this i went to ngk's and havent had a minutes trouble yet. ive tried the platinum ngk and have found almost the identical results from the standard ngk. so i say why spend more money if you cant see any improvements. this isnt just in one motor, ive owned over 20 mitsu trucks and i have 4 at the moment including a mits. starion with turbo and lots of fuel being dumped thru it. the standard ngks work better in it than the platinums. may not be the case for everyone but i wont run any other plug.

i have a Gen 1 ... i switched from single-prong bosch to their bosch platinum +4 several months ago and have been well pleased (and they have preset gap)

Pajeroman, I don't want to rain on your parade, but the 7hp "improvment" you got on the dyno is within the basic "identical repeat" error range for a chassis dyno. Were the following factors IDENTICAL: tire pressure, engine temp, tranny temp, diff temp, t/case temp, air temp, relative humidity, barometric pressure, fuel batch, ignition wires, ignition timing, dirtiness of the injectors, crud in the throttle body, pressure diff across the air filter, a/c line voltage, and about 100 more variables. If not (and I guarantee they weren't!), you can't attribute the gain to the plugs - unless you had an intermittent misfire with the old ones and not with the new ones, if it sparks and fires, that's it.

I'm an NGK fan, too, both plugs and wires. Magnecor wires are better than NGK's, but all the rest I've seen run at best a distant 3rd place, and I'm talking about plain vanilla NGK resistor plugs. the only thing I might do is to narrow the plug gap a little to create a slightly higher probability of the spark jumping the gap, especially in the turbo at higher boosts, where I might drop the gap to .030 -.035" depending on boost level, where the turbo turbulence can blow out the spark at higher rpms