i got a present of 4 pulstar plugs. anyone have experience with them? will be installing them soon and have questions about the gap. can you help? thanks in advance.

 

Did you try their website?

https://www.pulstarplug.com/howtobuy...engine=1426564

Jim

 

$25 a plug?!??! HOLY SHIZZLE. They better buy me dinner before they %^& me....

 

A key question is what is the difference driving the car?

 

I'd like to see dyno numbers for this mod! I do not believe any advertising hype any more.

 

20,000 x more powerful than a standard plug sounds like some BS to me. I'll stick with my NGK's for now.

 

I just put in some Bosch Fusion plugs. They retail for $25 each but I only paid just under $8 each (gotta love a NAPA discount). They look just like the stock NGK's but have a iridium and platinum fused center electorde. Engine runs smoother and better throttle response, but thats expected when your running brand new plugs.

 

i was told by a mechanic that the gap is 44, can we agree on that? i plan to install them this weekend.

 

They supposedly use an electrical capacitor which stores energy and releases it. Such things do exist as I know that the ZAP-X will be using a type of electrical capacitor.

 

I believe the plug gap is .032". .044" sounds kinda wide but it would also depend on the spark plug and the coil that is firing the plug. If the plug gap is to wide and the coil has to fire at max output constantly, the coil will burn out prematurely.

 

How do they store the charge quick enough without effecting timing?

 

It stores energy over 2 microseconds then releases it over 2 nanoseconds. The energy released is supposedly equivalent of 1,000,000 watts.

 

the dealer in scottsdale az claims no knowledge of a gap setting since the oem plugs are four pronged and dont need gapping. pulstar says the gap is 32, so ill try that.

 

how do they feel. If there really is a difference I might look into them.

 

This kinda sounds like the BS with Nology wires and their capacitor. I still call BS on it until I see it proven. I'm not calling anyone a liar, its just that after spending 15 months going to an automotive tech center, I'm a little hesitant to believe some hype people say.

 

The best example of a capacitor is a camera flash. A camera flash is far brighter than a flashlight but it only lasts less than a second. This is because it stores energy from the battery when it needs to and releases it instantaneously.

 

i installed the plugs, gap 32, and drove the mini about 5 miles. my first impression is that the cvt is smoother and the pick up is better, but this is just a first impression, will have to see about the mileage and whether the pick up is perceived or real.since the plugs were a gift, i cant complain at all.

 

I don't think anyone is claiming that capacitors don't work - after all, they've been around for 250 years.

But the claims of increased performance from capacitor-equipped spark plug wires are suspect, at best.

A spark plug has only one job - to ignite the air/fuel mixture. The only two possible results are A) the plug ignites the mixture, and B) the plug fails to ignite the mixture. Things like how quickly the flame spreads through the combustion chamber, how much of the fuel/air mixture gets burned, and how much power is extracted from the burning fuel are dependent on things like cylinder pressure, cylinder temperature, compression ratio, the size/shape of the combustion chamber, and the timing sequence of the intake and exhaust valves opening and closing. None of these things are affected by the spark plug or plug wires that you use.

If your current plugs/wires are reliably igniting the air/fuel mixture in the cylinder, then switching to a higher-voltage coil, multi-tipped plugs, capacitor-equipped wires, or installing a multi-spark ignition box isn't going to do anything for you.

And there's no reason that the stock ignition setup won't reliably ignite the mixture unless you've done something to drastically increase the cylinder pressure, or you're running some weird type of fuel or your air/fuel mixture
is way out-of-whack.

 

I have read that the EPA has conducted some sort of test on these and found an average mpg gain of 2+%. Perhaps someone well-off can dyno a before and after with these plugs so we can see if they really work or not.

 

I call BS on that since the EPA typically doesn't test things like this. Also, if something as relatively simple as this can give a 2% boost in economy you'd think the manufacturers would implement it to help them better meet their CAFE standards.
What really disturbs me is in their own little graphic near the bottom of the page where it shows the engine cycling and the resulting cylinder pressures with their plug. Well it really looks like their plug causes detonation based on the rapid, somewhat uncontrolled increase in cylinder pressure and if your engine detected these conditions it would more than likely pull timing resulting in a loss of power.

 

The OP says he does feel a difference in his car, although it'd be more convenient if he could show us proof if his car gained or lost any hp/torque. I myself am skeptical about this product and have been trying to find at least some research to see if any of this is true or not. The last thing I saw was on the vette forums about a vendor getting in contact with pulstar about doing an independent study on the plugs. I'm not a registered user there so I didn't bother signing up and looking for the thread.

EDIT: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...3/ai_n16018827 is where I read the EPA test FTP 75 thing.

 

Careful with that link, my browser went crazy trying to block a half dozen pop-ups.
I'm sure he did feel a difference with the plugs, as he would if he had replaced slightly worn stock plugs with new replacement ones.
The article you linked to is a press release from the manufacturer itself, it offers limited information (such as what vehicle the EPA used to test these) and then went on to make even more outrageous claims such as a 10% increase in power in their own testing. That would be a 20hp increase on a 200hp car, or about the same power gains as installing a cat-back exhaust and CAI on one of our cars, I'm searching the EPA website now for these test results, I'm not going to be convinced by a press release (since I'm a marketing major myself and you know you can't BS a BSer.)