hey guys thanks for watching diy bride in this video i'm going to show you guys how to properly perform a tune-up on more of a modern car now the vehicle we're going to be doing a tune-up on is actually my wife's suburban it's a 2008 with a 5.3 liter v8 throughout this video we're going to be covering specific tips on the tools that you use the particular products that you use with specifically some techniques on properly performing a tune-up on more of a modern engine now first off i just want to cover some of the benefits of performing tuna performing a tune-up typically you get an improved idle improved fuel economy and improved performance and you also lessen the chance of mechanical breakdown by not performing regularly tune-ups on your engine you actually cause a lot of build up to happen inside the engine and can actually lead to failure of internal components of the engine and emissions related components like your egr system and also really really expensive components in your exhaust system called the catalytic converter if your engine isn't running at the proper performance like it might be misfiring and not firing in all cylinders perfectly it causes an excessive amount of heat inside the exhaust system and will prematurely cause your exhaust system to fail modern engines vary just a little bit from the older engines that we use to tune up modern engines have fuel injection systems versus carburetors and the ignition system is a little bit different too the older vehicles used to have what's called a distributor on them they're required a distributor cap and distributor rotor to be replaced newer vehicles are going to be distributed with ignition systems and they have typically spark plug coils that help generate the spark for the spark plugs now when tuning up a modern engine it still is fairly similar to doing an older vehicle you're still going to be replacing your spark plugs your spark plug wires your engine air filter your engine fuel filter also the pcv valve cleaning the fuel system like your fuel injectors and your throttle body really helps out on modern vehicles and in some cases on some models you may need to adjust the valves inside the engine so on my suburban it's long overdue for a tune-up unlike the older vehicles that would require a tune-up every 15 to 30 000 miles a month more modern vehicle is typically recommended to be tuned up every hundred thousand miles like my suburban now i'm 100 and almost 135 000 miles so i'm pretty long overdue for this tune-up and it's actually started to misfire and set the check engine light it's not running very smooth so i'm hoping that by performing this tune-up it's going to clear up my check engine light and make the vehicle run better alright guys so now i'm going to pull my suburban in my garage here and show you guys how to do the tuna my daughter has a soccer tournament in mesquite and we're taking the whole family on a 600 mile drive so it's uh in the middle of the winter here in utah and i've got a long drive in nevada ahead of me i really want to get this suburban running good before i head out to nevada okay so the first thing you want to start with is by disconnecting the battery just so that you don't accidentally short out any of the electronics it's always a good idea to disconnect the battery first now it's time to remove the spark plug wires on this particular engine it's a v8 so you're going to have four spark plugs on one side and you're going to have four spark plugs on the other side not all engines have spark plug wires some of them just have a spark plug coil that has a spark plug that goes directly down into the cylinder through the valve cover this particular style of engine has a spark plug wire here that connects up to the coil and goes down to the spark plug if you're going to be reusing your spark plug wires you want to be really careful when removing them we're going to be replacing the spark plugs wires in this case so it's not a real big deal we can go ahead and get pretty aggressive by tugging and pulling on these spark plug wires and it's not going to matter if we damage the wire because we're going to be replacing them with new ones however if you didn't have spark plug wires to replace it with you would want to be really careful when removing the wire so now you just want to continue on by removing all the spark plug wires sometimes it's fairly hard to remove the wire and you've really got to wiggle the wire back and forth pretty aggressively to get the spark plug wire off the spark plug now some sometimes it works out best to actually get a set of pliers and pull on the spark plug wire to remove them all right so when doing the spark plug wires it's always a really good idea to get a new set i had to get pretty aggressive with the set of wires and actually broke a little section there that you'd either have to repair or fix so even though the wire might be okay before you're going to pull them off they usually get beat up from just getting aggressive and trying to pull them off sometimes it's handy to have a set of pliers like these these are spark plug wire pliers that are specifically designed to fit around the spark plug wire and actually uh pull up on the spark plug wire to get it off the spark plug as far as the greatest spark plug wires that i recommend get the best quality wires that you can really find typically the inexpensive spark plug wires really cause a lot of resistance in the spark and you don't get quite as good a spark with the inexpensive wires okay so on this engine you've really got to get up in the engine compartment just kind of lay on top of the engine in order to get to the back spark plug wires alright so now that you've got all the spark plug wires removed it's time to remove the spark plugs now you do this using a ratchet and preferably one with a flexible head like this one i've got here i've also got a couple extensions i like to use two different size extensions because sometimes you need to be able to change the length of your extension and if you've got just one long extension it doesn't always fit into the spot that you're trying to reach so if you've got two you can disconnect in between the two extensions and easily change the length of the extension so basically what i have here is a spark plug socket that's designed to remove spark plugs and the couple extensions and the flexible head ratchet alright so another tool that i like to have is an extension with a lock on it that i can hook into my spark plug socket a lot of times when you go to pull on your spark plug socket it'll actually come disconnected from the extension if it doesn't have a little lock on it like this one here okay so first you take your extension and your spark plug socket and you insert it onto the spark plug push it on all the way and then you go ahead and grab your ratchet and connect it onto your extension and go ahead and remove the spark plug now typically i'll go ahead and loosen up the spark plug with the ratchet first and then once i get it loose enough i can just twist it out with the extension and the socket by hand now you can see this spark plug here has 135 000 miles on it this spark plug is made out of an iridium tip so you only need to change the spark plugs out every 100 000 miles now on older vehicles that were built back in like maybe the 90s and in the 80s they put a spark plug in them that had a copper tip on them the copper tip spark plugs are a lot softer and typically only lasts about 15 to 30 000 miles now i went a little bit longer than what i should have on this particular engine and push these iridium tip spark plugs all the way to 133 000 miles and i was starting to get a misfire bad enough that it actually set the check engine light so what you want to do is just go through and remove all the remaining spark plugs a couple of these spark plugs were actually pretty fouled out just smelling them i could tell that it there was a lot of fuel on there and it wasn't igniting the spark very well it's a good idea to have a magnet tray like that one there that i've got you can put any bolts or nuts and put them onto that magnet tray and not lose them okay so another thing that i recommend is a set of mechanic gloves it keeps your hands from getting kind of beat up and little scuffs and nicks from slipping off your ratchet or wrench and smacking into a piece of metal there like i did in this spot this basketball club you've really got to get in here and just kind of lay on top of the engine in order to access the back spark plug extension and socket on the spark plug first and then attach the ratchet just because it's easier to get the spark plug socket down in the hole without the ratchet on there and then once you get on there then put the ratchet onto your extension okay so as far as the brand of spark plug you should use i highly recommend putting in the exact original equipment spark plug the original type and brand of spark plug that goes in your vehicle now in the wife's suburban it's an ac delco iridium spark plug is what originally came with it now the engine and the ignition system was specifically designed to run with these spark plugs i really don't recommend changing to different types i recommend going with the original type even some of the newer vehicles today also use the tip just like the older ones made out of copper so make sure you look up specific type whether it be copper or iridium or platinum or nickel and what brand that it is and put in the original type spark plug now many of the copper spark plugs you need to actually gap them with a spark plug gap tool like this one here the iridium and the platinum tip spark plugs you don't want to put the gap tool in there because you can actually ruin the tip so it's not recommended to gap their iridium or platinum but it is definitely recommended to use a gap tool on the copper tip spark plugs and make sure you pick up some anti-seize to put on the spark plug as well all right guys so now it's time to install the new spark plugs and before you twist them into back into the engine it's a good idea to get some of this anti-seize and put it just on one side of the spark plug there and then go ahead and thread it into the hole installing the anti-seize isn't an absolute requirement but it's highly suggested just in case you have to remove the spark plugs later and they got seized in the motor they might actually strip the threads out when you go to remove the spark plugs putting the anti-seize just prevents that from happening and i first just get the spark plug finger tight with the extension on there and then grab your ratchet and connect it to the extension and just tighten it up enough to where it's tight but don't tighten it too far that you strip out the threads okay so in addition to your standard size ratchet i strongly recommend getting some smaller ones as well a lot of times it's really hard to fit your larger ratchet in some of the tight spots and a smaller one like this one here or even a really small quarter inch ratchet with a small extension and a little adapter here to fit your spark plug socket this allows you to fit into some really really tight places specifically on my wife's suburban on the passenger side the back spark plug is really hard to get to and this makes it really easy to get in there with a real small setup like this another thing that's nice to have is just a basic light this is a nice magnet led light actually the toyota parks department gave this to me for free but i'm sure you can pick up something that will work something that i highly recommend is picking up some dielectric grease dielectric grease keeps from corrosion happening in between your spark plug and the wire or in between the wire and the coil a lot of times moisture can get in between those connections and cause corrosion which will eventually lead to resistance and spark by putting this to lock dielectric grease in there you lessen the chance of moisture getting in there and ruining the connection okay next you want to take your spark plug wire and your dielectric grease and put some dielectric grease into each end of the spark plug wire like that right on the little connector is where you want the dielectric grease and then on this particular motor it has these little heat protectors to protect the wire from melting against the exhaust manifold so you put those back on there like that and then just take the wire connect it onto the spark plug first and then go ahead and push it up onto the coil and connect it firmly into the coil as well now i've already gone through and replaced all the spark plugs on the engine so now basically what i'm doing is getting the rest of the spark plug wires and installing them on the engine now many engines out there will have spark plug wires that are all different lengths you'll have one length that goes to one cylinder and another length that goes to another cylinder on this particular engine all the spark plug wires are the same exact length so we don't have to worry about matching up the correct length to each cylinder each wire is all the same so it makes it really easy we just go through and install all this new spark plug wires on the engine at this point always make sure that your wires are not resting against the exhaust manifold because that will burn through the wire later alright so the next step into performing a tune-up is to go through and clean the throttle body now to do this you simply just remove the air horn off of the throttle body and spray spraying a bunch of cleaner into the throttle body plate and inside the throttle body bore and wipe it out by cleaning the throttle body you're going to improve the throttle response you're going to going to improve the idle and just overall performance so the first thing you do to clean the throttle body is to loosen up this clamp here using an eight millimeter you've got to pull on this little thing this little tab right here and just pull that up and off and then pull this off here by just wiggling this back and forth there's also a little pcv hose over here on this side that you undo there's a clip that hooks this air horn to the radiator hose and i use this panel popper here to pop that off now you can just kind of lift and push that out of the way there then you can see this here is the pcv hose that that just unhooks from off the side there now to do this you just take your throttle body cleaner and spray it into the throttle body you can spray on the outside of the throttle body as well cleaning the outside up a bit and get you an old rag just make sure that it's clean and clean the throttle body out spray directly into the throttle body whip it open after you've cleaned the throttle body it's a good idea to check the air filter remove the four screws this final screw down here it's going to be easier to have this long extension on it and inspect to make sure it's not overly dirty or anything like that this one's still pretty clean i'm just going to go ahead and bang it out bang a little bit of the dirt that's in there out reinstall your air filter and it's always a really good idea to make sure that you've got the filter lid back on tight you don't have it any gaps or anything missing to where the air filter isn't going to seal up correctly to the air filter housing so just make sure you're looking around closely around each one of the areas that it mounts into and make sure that you've got it you've ensured that you've got the air filter lid installed correctly all right guys so not every vehicle has a fuel filter that's serviceable some vehicles like my wife's suburban the fuel filter is part of the fuel pump but many suburbans actually have a serviceable fuel filter and many vehicles out there also have a serviceable fuel filter all right guys so in addition to replacing your filters i highly recommend picking up a fuel injector cleaner something that you either can put directly into the fuel tank or something that hooks up into the fuel rail system and runs off of that specific cleaner will be really helpful as well the one thing with doing that is it will require some additional tools to be able to do that otherwise just putting in something in the tank is going to be better than not using any type of fuel injector cleaner alright guys just finished up the tune up on my suburban got the spark plugs replaced the wires cleaned the fuel system hopefully it's going to take care of my check engine light and improve some performance you