pulse plugs (pulstar)
 

i found out about these the other day anyone \know if they are worth their salt
www.pulstar.com

ha they don't even make them for rx's

Also they're junk.

all the tests ive seen on tv or what not look like they kick other plugs asses, whats so junk about them.

seems to be only made for Nissans and hondas

Ya know, everything on TV is 100% accurate, right? I mean, it's not like the manufacturer of products being tested on car shows are sponsoring the show or something....Oh, wait. :)

But that idea alone does not disprove the findings.

There are several publications that have tested these plugs, and most have been quite honest of their findings. Some applications (most notably the VQ35) respond very well to these, whereas others (can't think of it right now but I remember the results) didn't respond at all.

The only way I can think of the difference in the way these plugs fire and normal ones is the difference between a standard arc and an arc-blast. One will scorch a little and produce a visible spark, one will knock you on your ass and cause an audible explosion. Now that may not be the exact way these things work, but the point is there are differences in the way electrical energy can be released.

I think the first time I ever heard of a company making these type of plugs that I can remember was the late 80s. They were tested by the US EPA and proved to be junk. Since then, about a hundred different versions have been produced and none have been on the market for more then a year.

The fact is, once the flame front has been ignited, the plug is out of the equation. You could have the most powerful spark in the world but if all that is required in a tiny arc, it's all irrelevant.

Also keep in mind that the pulse plug is just a capacitor in series with the plug. It cannot create any more energy, and actually lowers spark energy because no capacitor is 100% efficient.

If they were so good, they would have been on all vehicles for the past 40 years.

Just reading the marketing rhetoric is enough to make you question the manufacturer. It claims things that are impossible:

" but incorporate an internal capacitor to deliver a spark 10 times more powerful than a spark plug with less cycle-to-cycle variation"

That's pure bullshit. You can't make a spark 10 times more powerful without using 10 times the power to do it, and where does this power come from? Thin air? The ether? God? A plug can only deliver slightly less power then is supplied to it.

I've tried these in a truck. I got a little bit better gas mileage. But not worth the
cost in difference

Yeah, new plugs always up the mileage a bit before they start to wear.

we (NGK) have tested these spark plugs and found them to be comparable in ignitability to our V-power plugs. If you're not familiar, the V-power plugs are a basic nickel-alloy plug with a V-groove center electrode and they generally sell for around $2 a piece.

The Pulstars are around $25 a piece. Their supposed built in capacitor is nothing more than an additional air gap within the plugs body. This increases the voltage requirement to ionize the air gap, putting additional strain on your ignition system. You can get the exact same effect with a standard plug or any plug for that matter by simply opening the gap. This is why their plug produces a brighter spark, because the effective air gap of the plug is very large.

They have very clever marketing ads, but ultimately they are just "HYPE" plugs. If they really worked to increase performance as much as they claim every OE manufacturer in the world would want to use them. Not dissin the product, just stating the facts


Regards,

Amazing...100% wrong!!

1. No one has made a plug like this ever. We are the first and it was launched just 18 months ago. All the plugs you talk about are regular spark plugs with different electrodes on them...all just 50 watts peak power.

2. Of course if you ignite the flame front with a larger spark the entire fuel charge burns sooner releasing more energy in a given period of time.

3. You obviously know nothing about capacitors. Please visit Wikipedia.

4. They might have been in vehicles 40 years ago if they were around then.

5. Of course you can augment the power from any source. Its called Pulsed Power Technology and is the cornerstone of Sandia National Laboratories who helped develop Pulstar. And if you want to see how Pulstar works (the concept of power compression) just visit Sandia National Lab's Z Machine http://zpinch.sandia.gov/. By the way, ever heard of a camera flash. Same principal.

6. I would be happy to provide with a Peer Review from a Harvard Physicist.

IDK what we're all arguing about, NGK makes the only plug for RX-7's that work right(that I know of and trust) and whether or not this makes sense for other cars I don't know either, but Aaron has a good knowledge of cars and especially RX-7's and sorry, but if he won't use them I won't either, especially for 25 bucks a pop!!

OUTRIGHT LIE!

1. You show me your test data and I will show you ours. It should include Southwest Research Bomb Testing, EPA US06 fuel economy and eddy current dynamometer testing by 3rd parties. I await your response or retraction.

2. We have been on the market now for 18 months and NGK has not yet sectioned one of our plugs? Are you kidding me? If you had you would know that we don't have an internal air gap, but a real capacitor. If you knew that you would also know that we do not increase voltage (or maybe you wouldn't know that). You owe this forum an apology for your outright lie. NGK should be ashamed of itself.

3. By the way, if anyone wants to see how NGK iridium compares to Pulstar in combustion testing, just visit http://www.pulstar.com/ignition-velocity.html.

4. If you only want a 50 watt spark plug (all 6 major brands are only 50 watts), then the best we have tested is Denso iridium.

But do you offer one for the RX-7's that is comparable to the NGK??? If not, then why is this debate going on?

hm, if pulstar gave use all their patent numbers then we could see when all the patents that are using where made. Ofcourse some patents would be old but their special technology would not. Right?

The debate is only about some ignorant people misrepresenting our technology sight unseen.

Hmm lets see where this goes..

Here you go: relevant Pulstar patents

ENERPULSE, INC.
LISTING OF ASSIGNED PATENTS AND PATENT APPLICATIONS

U.S. PATENTS:

1. U.S. Patent 4,589,398, issued May 20, 1986, (Application No. 06/583,694 filed February 27, 1984) titled "COMBUSTION INITIATION SYSTEM EMPLOYING HARD DISCHARGE."
Status: Abandoned for failure to pay 11.5 year maintenance fee.

2. U.S. Patent 5,272,415, issued December 21, 1993, (Application No. 07/414,054 filed September 28, 1989) titled "COMBUSTION IGNITOR."
Status: Expires September 28, 2009.

3. U.S. Patent 5,371,436, issued December 6, 1994, (Application No. 07/459,904 filed January 2, 1990) titled "COMBUSTION IGNITOR."
Status: Expires December 6, 2011.


4. U.S. Patent 6,329,243, issued December 11, 2001 (Application No. 09/376,150 filed August 17, 1999) titled “CURRENT PEAKING SPARKPLUG.”
Status: Expires August 17, 2019.

US PATENT APPLICATIONS:

1. U.S. Pat. App. 60820031. Filed July 21, 2006, titled “ HIGH POWER DISCHARGE FUEL IGNITOR”.

2. U.S. Pat. App. Provisional US60/799,926. Filing date May 12, 2006, titled “Composite Spark Plug”.


FOREIGN PATENT APPLICATIONS:


Brazilian Pat. App. No. PI0107046-0, filed December 10, 2001, titled “CURRENT PEAKING SPARKPLUG.”
Status: Examination must be requested by December 10, 2004.

Canadian Pat. App. No. 2,365,138, filed December 10, 2001, titled “CURRENT PEAKING SPARKPLUG.”
Status: Examination must be requested by December 10, 2006

European Pat. App. No. 01310324.7, filed December 10, 2001, titled “CURRENT PEAKING SPARKPLUG.”
Status: Examination has been requested.

Japanese Pat. App. No. 2001 402564 filed December 10, 2001, titled “CURRENT PEAKING SPARKPLUG.”
Status: Examination must be requested by December 10, 2004.

Korean Pat. App. No. 2001-0077897, filed December 10, 2001, titled “CURRENT PEAKING SPARKPLUG.”
Status: Examination must be requested by December 10, 2006

Mexican Patent Application No. 01/12701, filed December 10, 2001, titled “CURRENT PEAKING SPARKPLUG.”

ok, but you haven't answered my question, do you have one for rx7's, and if you do, why don't you send some to some of the people on here and let us try them free of charge, and give our "honest" opinions of it. I think that would say a lot about your company and let us decide for ourselves.

like i said before, i've only heard and seen videos tested on nissan's and honda's. also heard they arent for turbocharged cars...

suppose if there's any for the NA rx7 or the rx8?

where'd he go? i guess $25 x 4 = $100... $100 x 122,085members = 12,208,500

i dont think they want to do that... :P

I have copies of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science from the 1950s that advertise capacitive spark plugs. Their internal design is very similar to yours.

Many manufacturers claim this, but I've never seen proof. There is only a limited area of fuel between the two electrodes which limit how much fuel is ignited. Look at the plugs used by Mazda in the rotary. They have a much better electrode design.

I run what is in the top 3 largest electronics websites on the Internet. Search Google for "electronic circuits". Guess who is hit #1?

Are you saying that a capacitor is somehow 100% efficient and can increase the amount of energy available? Pure bunk.

The most you can do is store a gradual charge and then release it over a shorter period when the plug arcs. In that case, I would expect the capacitor to be in an R/C network with the plug electrode, which does not appear to be in your plug.

See #1. I remember reading about capacitor plugs in the 80s.

It's not at all the same principle of a camera flash. Most camera flash circuits are made of an R/C network to charge a large capacitor. In a strobe light, as the voltage rises, a DIAC or even a neon breaks down and conducts which triggers the gate of an SCR. The SCR conducts which allows current through a high voltage transformer to spike the bulb with a high voltage (generally around 4KV). This excites the xenon which then becomes conductive. Now the large capacitor discharges through the xenon and you get your flash. The cycle then repeats. A camera flash replaces the DIAC/neon with a manual switch or simply triggers the SCR electronically.

Are you saying that your capacitor is in parallel with the plug gap? Your website is very, very unclear and contains almost no technical information. All I can tell from your cutaway diagram is that it looks like a capacitor in series with a spark plug. If this is not the case, I apologize for jumping to solutions and suggest you update your website with an actual schematic.

I don't think that's necessary. What I would request if I cared enough would be his contact information so I could ask him/her myself.

Since I have no need for your plugs (I drive RX-7s and a Honda Insight) I have no vested interest whether they fail or succeed. I just have a keen sense to smell fishy marketing.

As many have mention on this forum, we do not make plugs for RX7s yet. When they are available we would be happy to have you guys test and report on them.

2. Visit http://www.pulstar.com/ignition-velocity.html. There you will see tests conducted by a major Research Institute.

3. What I am saying about capacitor efficiency is who cares? Capacitors compress electrical power without using any more supply power. This is why they can peak the power exponentially. A typical automotive coil stores about 50 mj of energy for delivery into the breakdown spark followed by the arc discharge (~200ma) and ending with the glow discharge (~50ma). The efficiency of these respective phases is 90%, 50% and 30%.

At 50 pF, and 20 Kv breakdown voltage, The pulse plug has a relatively high breakdown spark which delivers approximately 10 mj of energy. The breakdown spark is a low erosion spark, enabling long electrode life even though the current peaks at the order of 1,000 amperes within a period of about 10 nanoseconds.

So who cares about capacitor efficiency if you can increase peak output from 50 watts to 1 megawatt without using any more supply power? Do you understand the significance of this?

5. The capacitor in Pulstar in parallel with the coil and is located after the resistor in the plug.

6. I don't mind people asking questions of our technology (in fact, I hope they do). I do mind being called snake oil (or in your case "bullshit") from people who simply did not take the time to understand our technology, but are willing to denigrate it sight unseen just so someone with listen to them. That's just plain crap!

Hmmmmmmmm. Denso iridium plugs for RX7 - $35.30 each! No wonder you are looking for another source.

I'll give it a try.
 

I have brought this up before only to be flamed by people with no experience. Experience is the only thing I give any credence.
Theorize in one hand, spit in the other. Parker, when these things are available for the NA RX7, send me a set and I will publish my results.

Its funny that all of the "proof" he has comes from his own website, despite being from a "major research institute". You can usually tell the "snake oil salesmen" because of their tendancy to dance around issues.

I guess a good question to ask is since they have been around for 18 months, why aren't more people using their plugs?
If they are so great, why aren't they standard equipment in new cars?
Why are the only positive test results for the product found on their website?

Just another hype fed, fly by night company gone in a year......

john ny

Just a few interesting excerpts from pages and forums from around the web:



Also, there have been a few reported instances where the electrode actually fell off the plug and into the cylinder causing a lot of engine damage. Try them if you want, but I won't be putting them in any of my cars.

iamsisyphus- i do agree with you about experience but at the same time i couldnt bring myself to waist 100 bucks on these plugs......if they wanted to give me one set for free or i came along some for free then i would give it a go but thats it.

dparker- if you didnt notice you are in the RX7 forums.......id say people are going pretty soft on you right now. "Denso iridium plugs for RX7 - $35.30 each" I don't know to many local guys that run these even the hardcore track guys.

I love to see Aaron come in on subjects like this :D very entertaining and at the same time i learn.

and on that note THansenite im not sure i want to use these plugs even if they were free...although i might cut one in half and see what it looks like lol

Hmmm.....are you sure?

"Every car on the market has the option of increasing 0-60 MPH acceleration simply by replacing spark plugs with Pulstar™ pulse plugs. "

Hmmmmmmmm the real question IS what heat range are you running the plugs at? Whats the coldest you offer.

Also Arroncake has been in here already ready page 1.

And still! Let's see where this goes...

These Denso plugs are iridium racing plugs thats why they are so expensive. They would be comparable to the NGK platinum race plugs that are widely used and are around $40 per piece.

the standard Denso and NGK replacement s are only $6-8 per plug for the nickel versions.

Now back on topic, I am having trouble figuring out how your company says that automotive ignition systems only produce 50 watts of power. For one thing there are many ignition systems out there that are able to produce much more than this.

for instance:

The formula for a Watt is

W = I x E



Where I = amperes and E = Volts. So to output nearly 1milion watts and assuming we have a peak output voltage of 50,000 volts we would need roughly 20 amps of current (20 x 50,000=1million)



Looking at MSD’s website for reference, their digital 8 and digital 10 ignitions output enough voltage and amps to generate this kind of wattage.

OPERATING SPECIFICATIONS FOR MSD 8 PN 7800

Spark Energy:
315-345 MilliJoules/Spark

Primary Voltage:
480 Volts

Secondary Voltage:
50,000 Volts Plus

Spark Series Duration:
20° Crankshaft Rotation

RPM Range:
15,000 RPM w/14.4 Volts

Voltage Required:
12-18 Volts, Negative Ground

Current Draw :
36 Amps@12,000 RPM

Weight and Size:
7 lbs., 10"L x 3.75"W x 5.75"H




So is it possible for regular plugs to transfer more than 50 watts of power? Yes, if they are running a good ignition like these offered from MSD, but most any street ignition including high output factory units such as the 500hp corvette Z06 probably don’t come close to the amps that the high output race only units use nor are cars going to need this much wattage.

Don't even get me started on Top fuel cars that use dual 80 amp magnetos, yes 80 amps! take a look at that harbor freight welder you have in the garage that is 90 amps and think that that's whats going on in the combustion chamber on those engines! Those engine also use nickel NGK R6061 series plugs and nickel Autolites as well.

Just because your car has a 50k volt coil doesnt mean its putting out 50k volts all the time, although it has the potenital if required. Most of the time it requires less than 25k volts to fire a spark plug in a regular automotvie application.


Last but not least I reviewed our examination report of the pulstar plugs and couldnt find where it said anything about an air gap, so I have to retract that statement, although it might be in a different page. Looking at the photo of your diagram it does look like there is an air gap though just after the resistor section?

What I found most interesting though in the report after reviewing it again was through dissection and x-ray tomorgraphy they found that your green "pulse circuit" is nothing more than a straight piece of steel. Now I am by no means a capacitor engineer but I think there should be more to a capacitor than a piece of steel?

i agree with Aaron cake this sounds fish

I guess you didn't look at the 3rd party tests, Peer Reviews, Southwest Research data or Sandia National Labs data. You can always tell about the "ignorant" because they don't really care about facts.

Thanks for at least having the integrity to own up to your error about the air gap. Now, go back an do your equation, but this time put a resistor in it. Your plugs do have resistors don't they?

Oh, don't worry. I read those reports. However, I also read many other third party reports found on the web with a simple search that says these are a gimmick and make no difference in performance, economy, etc. Also, you just proved my point of dancing around questions because you didn't answer any of the three I asked you.

I've been looking through a fair amount of papers and more the past few days.

Could you give us paper names, names of researchers, anything to locate these?

/I find it personally VERY surprising I haven't been able to locate anything on this from Sandia considering the claims on the web. I'd like to read more, but as I said, I cannot locate these even in Lexis-Nexis so far.

dparker: Don't waste the air! The only important, uncontrovertable information you can provide is when the plugs for our cars will be available.

For any position, regardless how true, there are a dozen contra on the web.

How about a link to a major research institute (maybe a name of said institute and your contact at said institute) instead of a link to text on your website?

I noticed that your website does not include any double blind tests. Have none been performed? For example, you should have picked up a random car and then put a new set of plugs in it. Find a volunteer and tell them you are testing a new stereo. Have them drive the car for a week while you secretly record fuel consumption. Then take the car, swap the stereo, install your plugs, and give it back and repeat for another week test. Then compare fuel economy. You'd have to do this with a number of people, a number of vehicles, and in different driving conditions.

This is where your understanding of basics physics falls apart. Capacitors do not "compress" electrical power, for that is impossible. They also are not 100% efficient (no component or process is) so some power is always lost in leakage current and heat. Hence my original remark about how you cannot increase the amount of power delivered to the plug, it can only be less then the coil produces no matter what trickery is applied.

I'll take your word for it. I don't have the equipment to measure the efficiency of an electrical arc. However I would love to find out how you arrived at these efficiency numbers. Also the only part of that which we care about is the actual arc. We don't care about corona after the discharge event (which is caused by the ignition coil inductively ringing, like all inductors will).

Your capacitor is only 50pF? 50 pF?! That is a very, very, very small capacitor that stores only a tiny amount of power. 50pF is 0.00000000005 F. Picofarad capacitors are generally used in high frequency (RF) oscillators. That is a ridiculously small amount of power. If it didn't involve some really small numbers combined with really big numbers I would calculate how many Joules of energy 0.00000000005 coulombs of electricity is at 20KV. It's nothing. Less then a static shock. I could spend all day charging 50pF capacitors to 20KV and then touching them to my skin without feeling any discomfort.

On second thought, I'll calculate it anyway.... J = 1/2CE²

J = 0.5 * 0.00000000005 * 400000000
J=0.01

You store 0.01 Joules of energy in your capacitor. So you are correct in your estimate of energy storage. If, as you say, the average automotive coil puts out 50mJ, what use does putting a small capacitor in parallel accomplish other then to make a potential oscillator? Surely the required voltage to break down the air gap at the electrode will build a higher voltage then charging a capacitor? And if it didn't, then it would conduct before the capacitor charges anyway.

I'm betting that parallel spark plug wires have right around 50pF of capacitance, not that it really matters though. Also, has anyone ever measured the capacitance of an actual spark plug? You know, since it is a capacitor (two electrodes separated by an insulator) I'd be curious to see how much natural capacitance it has. Unfortunately I don't have a multimeter that can read capacitance (weird, I know...).

Another question is that you say an ignition coil produces 50mJ of energy (which is odd because many aftermarket systems are rated in at least a hundred mJ, though I guess it stands to reason they are more powerful), and your capacitor stores 10mJ. So, you are only releasing 10mJ into the gap from the capacitor, and the remaining 40mJ does what exactly? It jumps the gap exactly as it would have before.

Note I'm ignoring efficiency here but we all know that no process is 100% efficient. There is loss in the wires, in the plug itself, in your capacitor, at the spark gap, etc. It takes more then 10mJ to put 10mJ worth of energy into a capacitor. Only a tiny little bit more, but more nonetheless.

On the subject of losses, since a capacitor conducts as it charges, you are shunting power directly to ground during the charge period.

What you just said is flat out impossible and flies in the laws of physics. First of all I don't understand where you are getting your 50W rating from. My Crane CDI box draws 10A at 12V for 120W, and I have to believe that it is more then 50% efficient. Thus I'd be willing to bet that around 100W ends up at the electrodes of the spark plug.

Secondly, and most importantly, YOU CANNOT CREATE ENERGY OUT OF NOTHING, NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO. If you input 50W into a system, then you get 50W out of it (in reality less due to losses). So if you put 50W into a capacitor, you get 50W out. You are telling the world with this statement that you can put 50W into a spark plug, but because it has a capacitor in parallel with the spark gap, it is now outputting 1 MW? I don't know if I can effectively communicate through text how utterly wrong and impossible this is without breaking forum rules. CONSERVATION OF ENERGY!

So you have an R/C time constant. What is the value of your resistor?

Your plugs are bullshit. I use the phrase "bullshit" because it elicits an immediate and strong reaction, which brings to the discussion all the components of whatever is being called "bullshit" so it's easier to debunk. Worked for fuel line magnets, worked for ionized bracelets (That one I did live in front of a crowd at a fair and had 50+ people laughing at the salesman. When asked, the salesman couldn't even tell me what an "ion" was.) and worked for HHO/Water4Gas.

I admit, at first I thought your capacitor was in series with the plug and not in an R/C network. That was a misunderstanding on my part. But the end result is the same regardless.

Here are some other statements from your website which I find to be highly questionable if not outright impossible:

http://www.pulstar.com/
"The Pulstar pulse plug represents the first technological advancement in spark plug design in the past 100 years!"

For as long as spark plugs have existed, people have been experimenting with electrode shape, material, number of electrodes, resistors/capacitors in the plug body, etc. That's why we have nice platinum plugs that don't need to be changed until 100K, iridium plugs that last even longer and produce a stable arc under lean mixtures. Mazda alone has tried at least 4 different plug designs in the rotary.

"Integrating Pulsed Power Technology (PPT) is a step no other manufacturer has brought to the automotive industry."

I have Popular Mechanics and Popular Science magazines from the 50s that advertise plugs with built in capacitors. I remember watching Two Guys Garage and PowerBlockTV 5 years ago when they were selling capacitor plugs. While I'm sure that they are not using the same setup (after all, you would not have been able to get a patent with prior art), the concept is the same.

"They are a conduit through which the ignition system's power flows. "

That would be the spark plug wires. Spark plugs are discharge electrodes.

"Since ignition systems only generate 50 watts of peak power, all that is available to ignite the fuel in the cylinder is 50 watts. "

I've already questioned your 50W statement, but this statement is correct. If you put 50W into a plug, you have 50W worth of spark (a bit less due to efficiency losses). Slapping a capacitor into the plug means that, guess what, you also only have 50W (now less then before due to small efficiency losses) worth of energy to make a spark. Simple, basic, elementary science.

"This often leads to incomplete combustion and poor efficiency, thus lowering fuel economy and power."

Considering modern cars are scoring damn near zero on the HC section of emissions tests, I really question how much "incomplete combustion" is taking place. And modern vehicles with reasonably sized engines seem to get pretty decent mileage. A Corolla will return 40MPG highway, as will a Civic. Hell, a Corvette with it's huge V8 will do 30 MPG highway. My Insight, using iridium plugs, will run beyond 100MPG on the highway when the conditions are correct.

Next page, http://www.pulstar.com/aboutus.html

"Pulse plugs are truly a breakthrough in ignition technology that for 100 years has been limited by weak, 50-watt spark plugs."

What is it with this 50W statement? A plug is not a light bulb. It is a spark gap. If you blast it with 200W worth of HV, you will get a spark approximately corresponding with 200W. Same for 50W. Same for 500W. Years ago I found the limit to spark plugs when experimenting with them as a spark gap for my Tesla Coils. Run in a vacuum, a spark plug fed with the secondary of a microwave oven transformer (2000V, 200mA) lasts about half a second. But to say that a spark plug is somehow limiting the ignition system's total output to 50W is just insane. Once the arc is struck, the resistance of the gap falls to damn near zero and thus what is limiting current are the plug wires and coils themselves.

"Like a camera flash intensifies light, pulse plugs intensify ignition power generating up to 10 times more power than spark plugs."

A camera flash does not "intensify" light, for that is impossible. You cannot amplify anything without external power input. You can focus light, but the overall amount of energy remains the same. A camera flash charges a big capacitor (ever notice how long they take to charge?) and then discharges it all at once through a tube. It is a significantly large capacitor. Often around 300uF at 350V. That is a lot of power, and will knock you on the floor in a hot second (ask me how I know....I've built a lot of strobe lights in my time).

And again, YOU CANNOT GENERATE POWER FROM NOTHING.

The rest of that page is marketing. I notice that "Sandia National Laboratories" is not hyperlinked. Interesting.

Next page, http://www.pulstar.com/howtheywork.html

"For 100 years, spark plugs have remained much the same as they are today (history of the spark plug) generating only 50 watts of peak discharge power."

Again with the 50W. A spark plug is not a light bulb. It is a spark gap. The energy across the gap will be the input energy, minus losses. Nothing about normal plugs magically limits this to 50W.

"Pulse plugs feature a unique capacitor-based circuit that captures energy normally wasted by spark plugs and generates a spark with 10 times greater energy than any spark plug."

Wait a second...Your capacitor stores 10mJ, but a coil (according to you) outputs 50mJ. Math doesn't add up.

And again, YOU CANNOT CREATE ENERGY FROM NOTHING. Conservation of energy: http://library.thinkquest.org/2745/data/lawce1.htm

I skipped "spark plug history" because it's probably all marketing. Next page, http://www.pulstar.com/energy-efficiency.html

During this ionization phase, which lasts about 5 millionths of a second, the incoming voltage (which has nowhere to go) heats up ignition components including the spark plug. This is wasted energy.

No it doesn't. It charges the capacitance of the spark gap until it flashes over. Because after all, a spark plug is a capacitor no matter how it is designed.

Your schematic diagram/animation is wrong on several levels.

1. Your transformer is drawn incorrectly. It shows a 1:1 winding. The secondary should show more windings then the primary.

2. The circuit operation animation is wrong. When the switch is closed, current should flow through the primary. When the switch is opened, the primary current should cease, there should be some kind of image to show a magnetic transfer of energy to the secondary, and then it should how current flowing through the secondary and thus the spark gap. Your diagram shows the switch closing and current immediately flowing through the secondary. This is impossible as no DC transformer can exist.

3. It is almost never the + that is switched on ignition systems, it is almost always the -.

"What is different about a pulse plug is that instead of heating ignition parts during the ionization phase, this energy is stored in the integral circuit inside the pulse plug. When the ignition power overcomes the resistance in the spark gap, the pulse circuit discharges all of its accumulated power - 10 times the power - in 2 billionths of a second!"

Again, impossible. Where does 10 times the power come from? Your capacitor only stores 10mJ. That's not 10x 50mJ. Conservation of energy: http://library.thinkquest.org/2745/data/lawce1.htm

I'm going to skip a few pages down to http://www.pulstar.com/pulse-power-technology.html

"Pulsed Power Technology is the science of storing power for a relatively long period of time and then discharging the stored power in an instantaneous pulse of energy."

What's interesting about this statement is that it is the opposite of what ignition manufacturers have been trying to achieve. Ever since aftermarket ignitions were developed they were trying to get a longer spark duration with a better arc. In addition, most aftermarket ignitions also fire multiple sparks at low RPM. The benefits of aftermarket ignitions over old setups (points, transistor, etc.) are clear. The benefits over modern OEM systems are less clear. The benefits in high boost applications or when using AI are clear as well. So you go the exactly opposite direction and shorten the spark duration while keeping the same power input. That's weird.

Just a minor nitpick on the animation, but it clearly shows two different styles of plug. Probably the oldest style ever on the left, and your plug on the right. Any plug with a thin electrode like yours is going to make a brighter spark as the arc is more concentrated and thus more energy flows in a smaller area. Iridium plugs are so nice because the electrodes can be made super tiny.

Test procedure, http://www.pulstar.com/pdf/epep.pdf

It looks good to me at first glance. I was surprised to see you specifically mentioned the test compared to brand new plugs. That's a good thing. But your dyno graphs are too close to be outside the margin of error of a chassis dyno. All conditions must be controlled (air temp, humidity, fluid temps, etc.) which you don't make mention of. Probably because they are very expensive and hard to control. Not a single one of your tests on http://www.pulstar.com/testresults.html have a result greater then 4.3 HP with the exception of the S2000. Surly you know that this is inside the margin of error. No one in their right mind would list fractional HP differences from a Mustang Chassis dyno. Same statement regarding torque.

Installation guide, http://www.pulstar.com/installation.html

"3) Prior to attaching the wires or coil, apply dielectric grease around the ceramic insulator at the terminal end of the plug to promote a quality electrical connection."

That's good advice. I wish more people would follow it.

"4) Tighten BE-1 and DG-1 plugs to 20 Ft-Lbs. Tighten AD-1, CB-1 and EF-1 plugs to 11 Ft-Lbs. (In the absence of a torque wrench, a general rule of thumb is to torque tapered seat plugs (AD-1, CB-1 and EF-1) 1/8th turn past hand tight and torque flat seat plugs (BE-1 and DG-1) 1/4th turn past hand tight."

What, no anti-seize? And no one, ever, under any circumstances, should install spark plugs without a torque wrench. I would NEVER trust the torque rating a plug manufacturer supplies, only the factory specs should ever be used. Period.

"5) On most computer controlled vehicles allow at least one tank of gas for the computer to learn the characteristics of the new pulse plugs. You can speed up the learning process by disconnecting the negative battery terminal during install. Remember to reconnect the terminal before attempting to start the engine."

Well there you go. The ECU gets resets and learns all it's parameters again. Suddenly mileage is increased! Amazing! Of course, you can reset the ECU at any time so it relearns and get a short term mileage increase even with old plugs. Then as the ECU adjusts mixtures to suite the conditions and prevent damage to the cats, the mileage will settle back to where it was before the reset. And this is for relatively new vehicles only. No 2nd gen will ever benefit from an ECU reset. Neither will an FD. Only newer (post late 90s) ODBII vehicles.

Why is the Pulstar website also available at http://www.directhits.com ?

And I'm not the only one who agrees:
http://action.publicbroadcasting.net...st/864011.page
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum...d.php?t=956609 (last post is interesting)
http://forums.clubrsx.com/archive/in.../t-536425.html
http://www.driveaccord.net/forums/sh...ad.php?t=18564 (seems to cause CEL sights)

http://gen7accord.net/forums/viewtop...+plug&start=60
OK well I had these in my car for abotu 2 weeks, I know I'm V6, and they were causing Misfires up the ARSE, literally every 3rd time I'd hit Vtect the CEL would start flashing, same codes each time. I went back to Platinum OEM plugs, not a single issue since. the tips of each plug were also BLACK with only like 850 mile son them. They were the correct plugs and they were adjusted to the proper gap. Hope these work out better for the i-4 guys.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006...plug_demo.html
http://www.tunerfriends.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=12363
http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?p=853930
http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread...ighlight=plugs
http://www.teamzr1.com/ubbthreads/ub...at&Number=1976
http://forums.evolutionm.net/lancer-...tar-plugs.html
Even our own forum references them: https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generation-specific-1993-2002-16/pulstar-direct-hit-spark-plugs-738499/
Just a search on Google will turn up loads of stuff like this.

I did a bit of digging on what a "DirectHit" was. It was made by the same company as Pulstar and was sold via infomercials (late night) and retail stores. It's some kind of capacitive cap for spark plugs that is supposed to upgrade any OEM plug. The same claims are made with DirectHits. http://www.saturnfans.com/forums/arc...p/t-13848.html

I'm stopping right there because I think I've made my point. Fishy marketing, bunk science, violations of physics. Believe me or don't believe me, I've put the evidence out there for everyone to read.

:lol: dparker u just got owned....hard! thanks Aaron for disproving this crap!

I am thinking my original math on ignition wattage must not take a lot of things into account because 743 watts is actually equal to one horsepower.

and I don't think there is any way that a plug or ignition system is capable of generating 1 million watts of power, and maybe Aaron can elaborate a little more on this since he seems to have his electrical skills down pat.

So if the spark from the Pulstar plugs is 1 million watts, that would be equal to 1,345 horsepower!!

I really find that hard to believe, because if that were true I would think that we would no longer be using piston engines to drive the wheels of our vehicles when all this power is available.

50 watts which is around .06 horsepower seems to make a lot more sense and actually sounds realistic.

And finally I hope that everyone realizes that if something truly works it would be copied almost immediately, this is America people and there are many ways around patents.

Ask yourself this.

They have been out for 18 months and there are no other competitive products out there from any of the large US manufacturers like Champion, Bosch, Autolite, or NGK.

Why? Is it because they have ultra sweet technology? Nope.

In fact NGK has already examined the plugs and you can bet that every other MAJOR manufacturer has as well. If any of the large plug makers wanted to reproduce the plug it would be easy and they could probably sell it for half the cost that Pulstar does, the fact that they don't should tell you something.

NGK is the largest OEM supplier of spark plugs world wide, and I would imagine that if this technology actually worked like they claim our engineers would be working their asses off to sell it to the OEMS who would be pleading for it and to sell it to the real money maker which is the US aftermarket


Do OE manufacturers use fine wire plugs such as iridium and platinum? Yes, because they have been proven to work

Do OE manufacturers use multi-ground plugs? Yes, because they also have been proven to work.

Have you ever seen a splitfire type plug used in a stock application by an OEM? Nope, never.

Have you ever heard of a silver plug coming in an OEM application? Nope, never

Have you ever heard of a capacitor plug coming in an OEM application? Nope, and you never will.

You never see these types of plugs used because they are what we like to call "hype plugs". Plugs that utilize big ad dollars and clever marketing to doop the unknowing, unsuspecting end consumer.

I could only read so far before i lost a control rod and started to melt down.

I'll put it to you this way.

Iridium is a RARE EARTH METAL, which is why it costs so much.

I just put brand spanking new ngk platinums in my car along with 10.2mm wires for the low price of $55.

Even if pulse plugs were made for our cars, i wouldn't waste my money on them.

Just to clarify something in my long post, I did a calculation on 0.01 Joules per 10 nanoseconds and indeed, that can be represented as 1,000,000 Watts. 0.01 Joules/10nS indeed is a rate of 1 MW. Over 10 nanoseconds, don't forget. That is not a lot of power.

But to say that adding a 50pF capacitor in parallel with the plug gap suddenly turns a spark plug into a 1MW discharge device is shady marketing and a ridiculous claim. In a way, the marketing doubletalk is correct. But it's hard to pick out because the site is written purposely with mixed up units, twisted claims and mumbo jumbo to throw off the technically ignorant.

It's amazing how a few unit conversions can really skew the perception of a result, isn't it?

By the way, 10mJ over 10 nS is less energy then is in a typical static shock:
http://www.wolfsonelectrostatics.com...ews-item12.asp
Electrical energy that can be stored on the human body and then released in an ESD is measured in milljoules (mJ) and is governed by the capacitance of the body (C) and the potential or voltage attained (V), according to the formula E = ½ CV2. The capacitance of a person standing will usually lie in the range 100-300 picofarads (pF) and human body potentials in excess of 20,000 volts are unlikely to occur. Taking the maximum in each case, yields an energy level of 60 mJ, this represents a relatively small amount of energy compared with say a household light bulb which consumes a 1,000 times more energy every second.

My god, running my feet along a carpet is a multi-megawatt generator!!

Aaron, nice post, I consider myself to be smart, but that is way over my head, but I understand what it's getting at. Also liked how you put the rebuttals from other sites on there with the link. I guess he'll be trying to come up with other lies to get back on here. Thanks for the info and all the cool new words I've never known before.

About 15 years ago, an acquaintance of my Dad "invented" a super spark plug.
IIRC, this involved drilling a tiny hole in the electrode of a standard plug which somehow magically released all sorts of pent up energy.

He conned my father into becoming a "beta tester"...the procedure involved replacing the plugs every week, installing new ones and sending the used plugs in for "evaluation".
Naturally, Dad's mileage improved a bit but I always figured any car that got new plugs every week would show a bit better mileage and wondered if the modified plugs would even last much longer than a week before the electrodes fell off.

The whole project fell apart pretty quickly- what a shock!- and I haven't heard from that inventor again.
He was probably silenced by the "big guys", the same folks who quashed the 100MPG carburetor and the personal hovercar.

I want my jetpack!

I want my jetpack, too!

Why is a guy from pulsar on rx7club if they dont even make plugs for our cars? Really? I didn't see him jump when i posted this on dsm tuners a while ago. Everyone there said they were garbage and pointed me in the direction of what plug? You guessed it, ngk.

Aaron will shut a motherf-cker down quick! I took college credit physics I and II and chemistry I and II some odd years ago and some of that registers but those really werent my strong points. I barely passed all 4 classes. I was more of a welding/fabrication shop guy myself. Still, you have to know some chemistry and physics to do "it" well, too.

Edit: I enjoy being shut down as well. It keeps me from wasting money, breaking things, etc....

wow what a great thread lol :nod:

i have a set in my other car, damn things could prolly ignite water....:icon_tup: ireally like them

Of course you do, and of course they do. :rolleyes: Thanks for proving all of the actual scientifically based evidence I provided wrong in one quick subjective statement. You should join their marketing department. They could use people like you.