Jim Asked:
... Why does the Maintenance manual state we should not interchange spark plugs between cylinders?
More than anything it is a matter of convenience.
The Continental/Lycoming Folks swap/Rotate plugs all the time.
The reason for rotating the plugs is to get a little more life out of those expensive plugs. (Hold this thought!)
The current in the spark flows from Negative to Positive and tend to carry a little of the electrode metal with it.
This causes the Negative Electrode in the plug to erode faster.
I can't tell from the circuit diagrams which plugs have the Positive polarity but it seems from the diagrams that All 4 plugs in Cylinders 1&3 have the same polarity and all 4 on the other side have the other polarity.
So if you want to swap plug you would need to swap a Left Plug with a Right Plug and ideally the plugs that were paired to the same coil.
So swap 1Top with 2Top and 1B with 2B and so on...
After the swap, the plugs with the eroded center electrodes will start eroding the outer electrodes and vice versa.
Just make sure you keep them all straight.
Does/did it make sense to write up a detailed explanation of the proper procedure to rotate $3 spark plugs, or was it just simpler to say, "Just replace them!". Rotax correctly thought so!
. . .
Up until now it just did not make much sense trying to stretch a little more life out of an easily replaceable $3 plug. ($24 for all 8)
Now that the latest dual-electrode non-re-gapable plugs are $30 Each, ($240 for 8) doing the mental exercise of keeping track of where each plug came from and where it needs to go back to is starting to make more economical sense.
If you have the older single electrode NGK Plugs, Just re-gap them and put them back where you found them, or if they look worn, replace them.
If you have the newest dual-electrode plugs... Well, we all know what you are going to do no matter what we say! 