Charlie944

I ran across this while looking for some BMW's for sale: http://www.pulstarplug.com/index.html

Anyone ever heard of these before or know anyone using them?

Sunnyvale-951

Interesting. I've never heard about them before or run into anyone using them. I'd definitely like to hear from anyone who's had any experience with them though.

adrial

MSD ignitions do the same thing...except it happens at the coils instead of the plug itself.

Whoever came up with this concept is going to bring in the cash though...if they haven't already.

EDIT:

Holy crap $25 each....I rather buy myself an MSD box and use the $2 plugs.
My buddy with an MSD ignition in his supercharged VW golf goes through plugs quickly. I can't imagine it would be any different for this "pulsar" technology.

ehall

Interesting point. What is the life expectancy of the plugs? If it's pretty long, (relative to other parts in the ignition system) then it could be worth it.

I have a question. If it creates a much more potent spark would it make AFR/head gasket failures, more or less prevalent and why?

Portly

Looks like they're selling pretty much the same snake oil as Nology plug wires - except they're moving the whiz-bang capacitor concept to the plug itself to try - probably so they can avoid patent infringement.

_Jeff

jyoon

i bet they do about as much as splitfires

Charlie944

According to their website the recommended change interval is ~50,000mi.
When I had my Jacobs Omni Mag coil it ate through plugs quicker as well.

VWaddict

Speaking from an electrical engineering point of view, the wording of the advert is nothing if not misleading.

A MILLION(peak)WATTS!!!

Well, unfortunately the REAL work done is RMS power, not peak. And both the traditional spark plug and the new snake-oil concept that they're selling there are PASSIVE devices. The only source of POWER comes down the spark plug wire, and is delivered to the spark plug wire by the coil. To get a million Watts out, you have to put a million Watts in. Without a coil the size of a Humvee dealership, that's not going to happen.

So the RMS power delivered to the ignition gap remains the same... or more likely less, since no such 'technology' is lossless.

Sure, you can shorten the integration sample time to an indicated 2 nonoseconds, and you can claim that it is the same as a continuous one-million Watt power burst sampled over the same two nanoseconds...

But the difference is that a true million-watt power delivery KEEPS delivering power for the remaining 999,999,998 nanoseconds, whereas the snake-oil ignitor doesn't.

Brighter sparks don't mean better ignition. Neither do higher voltages. It's an old game of BBB: Bull**** Baffles Brains.

-To deliver 1 Million Watts to any part of your electrical system, you'd need about 71,500 Amps at 14Volts, assuming a lossless sytem. -Anyone here got a 286,000 Amp alternator in order to drive four of these things?

Keith

billindenver

Yeah, what Keith said....+1. You don't get something for nothing in the electron world. More power out is impossible without more power in.

eniac

I'll have to look these over in more depth but in glancing at the page it appears all these do if include an additional smaller capactior(coil) inside the plug itself. If you look at the size of your coil which is a capacitor, then compare to the size of these plugs...I doubt they will increase spark energy very much.

One advantage these might have however, it may be possible to run the equivalent of a much colder plug without the worry of them fouling out. That would be huge for us boost junkies here.

It does seem similar to what MSD boxes do, I had an MSD 7 on an old car that used to eat plugs. I wonder what would happen if someone used these plugs with an MSD lol.

billindenver

ONE TRILLION WATTS OF POWER!!!!

NeoRules

One Giga-watt... What were you thinking Marty?

adrial

They are claiming the same total energy output, just at a higher rate for a shorter period of time.

Do any of you actually KNOW for a fact that a stronger spark over less duration is NOT beneficial? I haven't taken any Internal Combustion classes so I will refrain from commenting.

I didn't read through the website in detail, but it strikes me as plausible. It's not snake-oil because its pretty obvious what the product does (if someone wanted to buy it and show it's bogus...it would be pretty easy to show that). It's up to the buyer if they think it is really beneficial or not.

streckfu's

1.21 Jigawatts!

BC

These might be good for those that cannot run an MSD box.