My engine has recently been missing at higher rpms, so last night I removed & replaced my NGK 6097's (.036) with new ones gapped at .030. The miss is gone, but the car stalled a few times on me early this morning.... the ECU needs to "re-learn" for a day or so, then I'm expecting the choppy idle to be gone (this happened before).
I would not go down to .026 though, try something more around .032/.036 if it's your first time. And go with a colder plug, folks here seem to favor the NGK 3330's and 6097's. Though you will need to change them every 3k-5k miles.
By the way, I think stock-gapped plugs should be .044, no?