I visited the Pulstarplugs.com site. It is an interesting concept. I do not know how to ask Toyota if this is dangerous for the Prius, or just a waste of money. They generate 1,000,000 volts in a nano second (according to their ads). Have you heard of, or tried these? At $24.95 each, I don't want to waste my money. I drove 6500 miles on a trip from California through Colorado to Missouri and back. I averaged 46 mpg. Now I drive Southern California traffic and average about 41.5 mpg. I cannot seem to do any better than this. I will drive to Sacramento this week and post the report by the end of July. We will see how we do. The car is/was fully loaded with luggage and two adults.
With all the variables affecting mileage (wind, weather, driving style, load, speeds, gas, placebo effect, etc) there is no meaning to a single-vehicle test. The claimed 3% improvement requires a far more sophisticated set of double-blind tests to validate the claims. If they are the miracle workers the makers claim, why aren't all automakers using them?
Spark plugs don't generate electricity, so that's certainly BS. And the plug can't create energy by itself; all it can do is spit out what the car's ignition system feeds to it.
Pfft, I can increase my mpg efficiency by 10% just by inflating my tires to 44/44. As for spark plugs, sounds like total bullshit. If car manufacturers could increase efficiency by improving spark plugs, Toyota would have already done so. Also... Might I point out that the spark plugs on the prius are high-end Iridium plugs and not your average "tin foil cup n string" sparkler
Those new spark plugs aren't much good without my new magnets which you place on the cylinder walls. They ensure harmonic alignment of the fuel molecules in the cylinders which result in more efficient burning of the fuel / air mixture. These extra special magnets will last a lifetime and only cost $ 50.00 USD each (You need one for each cylinder to ensure uniform power output of all cylinders).... Please send me an email with your credit card information and I'll email the magnets back to you within 24 hours. Sincerely, Keith P.S. Would you like to buy a slightly used bridge???
Fyi, after 40K I always get 40, maybe 42 at highway speeds (75 - 85). I don't know of any other car that gets 40mpg at 80mph. Impressively I recently got 48 from Flagstaff to Alb., at 80. I was wondering if 87 octane helped (we have 86 octane here).
I an a qualified mechanic and although I haven't been working in the trade for the past 7 years I was a specialist in electronic engine management and diagnosis. There have been a lot of products that claim to increase spark plug voltage. With the ignition systems I am familiar with the circuit opens in the low voltage side of the system collapsing the magnetic field around the coil. The collapsing magnetic field cuts across the secondary coil causing a rapid rise in voltage in both the high and low-tension circuits. The low voltage side of the coil has a voltage spike as high as 300 volts and the secondary coil can supply a hit of up to 50,000 volts but this may be higher now, as I said my knowledge is 7 years old. Voltage is the pressure of electricity, no matter how big your pump (coil) the pressure is dependent on the resistance to flow (spark gap and other resistance). Think about your garden hose with nothing on the end and the tap on half way, the water flows out with no resistance so there is nearly no pressure in the hose. Put a nozzle in the end of the hose which restrict the flow and pressure in the hose builds making the water squirt out under pressure. Your ignition system is similar, if you have a low resistance to earth at the spark plug the voltage across the plug will be low, an oil fowled spark plug has a very low voltage while an old burnt out plug with a very big gap will build a high voltage before an arc is established across the gap. The ideal spark to light an air fuel mix, which is lean, or a stichometric mixture is a fat spark, which is long enough to contact several fuel molecules surrounded by air. A long thin spark may not hit the fuel molecules causing a misfire. If you have a powerful coil you may have enough power to have a high voltage fat spark but like when you put the nozzle on the hose and made the stream of water thinner to increase the pressure, if you increase the voltage after the coil the spark will be thin and may not hit a fuel molecule causing a misfire. This is why a car with worn out plugs will misfire. Another problem with increasing voltage across the high-tension side of the ignition system is the spark duration. When everything is right in the ignition system the spark may have a duration of 2 milliseconds but a worn out sparkplug can lower the duration to under 1 millisecond increasing the chance of a misfire. A damaged sparkplug lead will cause the same problem, because the spark must jump 2 gaps the voltage increases across the circuit but the energy is lost in the lead not across the spark plug so this is worse than a worn spark plug. These spark plugs which claim to increase ignition voltage actually do but not anywhere near 1,000,000 volts, they can only supply what the coil supplies, there is a point where the insulation in the coil cant hold up and there is internal arcing in the coil. Soon the coil will be toast. It has been my experience that quality know brand sparkplugs give the best performance. I recommend Bosch, Nippon Denso, or NGK. Bosch is my first choice. Thankyou for reading this far. I should point out this has been simplified a lot.
Since spark plugs don't generate electricity, there is no way they can increase the output of the ignition system! The secondary (plug) voltage is supplied by the coil, which is set by design. One can change the plug's electrode configuration to alter how the spark affects the fuel-air mixture in the cylinder, but there's a limit as to how much you can do. Consider a three-electrode plug. The spark will jump to one of the electrodes, not all at once: it seeks the easiest path. The only advantage to a multi-electrode plug is having "backup" electrodes that spark better when one or more has fouled or worn.
As Rick says, the only function of a spark plug is to efficiently conduct the high voltage pulse inside the combustion chamber and let it jump across a gap to ignite an air/fuel mixture. So look for improvements in: 1. Insulation. Better ceramics can reduce losses. 2. Spark gap stability. Higher melting point alloys (platinum and iridium for example) so the electrode doesn't melt and stays sharp. 3. Higher quality construction - the latest plugs (stock iridium ones are a good example) last so long they -could- corrode in place. Better plating can reduce this problem. 4. Something that hasn't been done yet is to design a plug with the correct impedance. The spark train is an RF signal, and a properly designed constant impedance conductor will transfer the maximum energy. We may see this as the "next step" in ignition design. Forcing an electric breakdown (spark) in a combustion chamber becomes harder as the pressure rises. Although the Prius engine is a low compression type steps to improve the breakdown of the cylinder gases still help. Currently the iridium design works best for this, as the iridium will maintain a sharp point which concentrates the electric field increasing the chance the field will break down the gas (ionize it) and make it conduct (arc).
Ok, seriously. 1 Million watts is possible(Watt is a measure of POWER), since they are shortening the TIME of the spark. The TOTAL energy delivered to the fuel/air mix will probably be about the same, maybe less. 1 Watt = 1 Joules/second. So if the seconds is reduced by a factor of 10,000 then the Watt goes up by 10,000 Will this improve fuel economy? I haven't the foggiest idea.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bob64 @ Sep 20 2007, 10:29 PM) [snapback]515624[/snapback]</div> True, which is why you don't have to run a higher octane than the manufacturer recommends. As you said, this could hurt economy. However, if you run a lower octane than recommended this could affect "power" and mileage. Modern engine's knock sensors will retard the engine if it detects knock (as a result of the lower octane) and everything will go through the floor... especially mileage. I had a Lincoln Navigator that got about 14-15mpg on the freeway on Premium fuel (ouch). When we had the fuel shortage in Arizona the gas stations were only trucking in regular unleaded because they were having trouble catching up with demand and they prioritized regular since they only had so many trucks. I was on a road trip with my father and filled up with 87 octane (since that's what was available). My mileage went down to 6.5-7MPG on the freeway!! After about 30 miles or so I pulled into another gas station and bought some octane booster. My mileage immediately went back to my normal (and crappy) 14-15mpg.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(200Volts @ Nov 28 2007, 09:48 PM) [snapback]545538[/snapback]</div> Your point make sense. But the timing and duration of the spark depends on the engine design. Air-fuel mixture flow, piston and cylinder-head shape influence how the fuel ignites. Thus the ignition system is tuned to those mechanical factors. It seems unlikely that anyone could produce a one-size-fits-all device. Mingoglia, your Navigator would have probably adjusted its engine to some degree after a few tankfuls, but that wouldn't make much sense. Modern engine systems adjust for octane differences, but to go from premium (91) to 87 octane would be a big jump. The engine would adjust itself to avoid knock, but power would suffer. Lower power requires a heavier foot on the accelerator, which translates to lower MPG. For several months in 2005, I ran my Volvo XC90 on mid-grade (89) gasoline instead of its preferred 91. I concluded that the 3% price saving (10c/gallon) was not worth the lowered MPG. By switching back to premium fuel, I gained a little more than 3% in MPG.
The guy who joked about using magnets on the cylinders may have been looking in a crystal ball: a recent article in Scientific American said that placing powerful magnets in the fuel line, just ahead of the fuel injector, will lower the viscosity of the gasoline, resulting in smaller droplets and therefore better cumbustion and improved mileage.
That's not what octane ratings mean. A higher octane rating means that it will resist pinging/preignition better than gas with a lower octane rating. The amount of power is still the same. I just saw on Horsepower TV recently that they did a dyno test between stock plugs and Pulstars. There was ~5hp gain along with ~10ft/lb of torque increase. When you consider the added cost of the Pulstar plug, it's not worth it. I obtained a set(luckily for free) last spring for testing/review and saw no noticeable increase in mpg.
