Pulse Plugs: Bogus or bonus?

[cfg83]

JohnnyGrey -

Originally Posted by JohnnyGrey

Won't work. Your car won't be able to maintain a steady speed in cruise control off the ground. Tiny variations in throttle create huge differences in wheel speed. Either MPH will fluctuate wildly, or your ECU will panic and disable CC.

Yup, that's what happened when I did the test, the ECU/PCM disabled the CC. The differential spun the passenger front wheel but not the driver's side wheel.

CarloSW2

[toomuch]

Originally Posted by cfg83

I never got the impression that the pulse-plug dude was trying to scam me. Seemed like the honest sort, you know what I mean?

CarloSW2

Yea I do know what you mean. They seem like decent people. I have exchanged a few emails with the company, but I have not made a purchase. I want to, for the power and the FE, but not at $125 for four spark plugs. The company has even tested them on my vehicle, and they report a 2.2% FE gain.
I did ask them for a coupon, but got no response.

[trikkonceptz]

Has anyone tried indexing their spark plugs? Curious to see if that carries any positive effect on our vehicles...

WHat is indexing you ask ... here ..

Indexing refers to a process whereby auxiliary washers of varying thickness are placed under the spark plug's shoulder so that when the spark plug is tightened, the gap will point in the desired direction, either towards the intake valve or exhaust valve depending on engine.

[tjts1]

http://www.sparkplugs.com/sparkplug4...fid=0&KID=3095


Considering the price... I'll pass.

[guitarterry]

actually the dyno testing with a 5 hp gain would send alot of performance people running to the parts store. 5 hp is alot in some cases, especially for $100

[Ryland]

I had the same kind of problems as cfg83 did, I've had the pulse plugs in my vx for about 150 miles, mostly driving 10+ miles at a time, and when I let my car idle while going down a hill or at a stop sign, my car starts to run really rough then dies! so if there is any improvement in mileage it would be because my car doesn't spend any time idling, I haven't had the time to swap back to NGK plugs as I've been working more in the last few weeks and only driving the vx while I'm installing two new chargers in the Comuti-car.

[dparker]

Hi, this is the CEO of Enerpulse, the guys who make Pulstar.

I am noticing interesting posts about our product and thought I might add a few thoughts.

1. Mutiple strike ignition. Pulstar will not hurt this in anyway and should actually improve its overall performance.

2. I am not sure what the issue is with idling (would like more details), but we have seen some Chrysler products that respond well under load, but don't like Pulstar's power at idle. I must also tell you that we recently adjusted the resistivity of our plugs because we thought that might be contributing to the problem. Gapping, however, seems to be the biggest culprit in these situations.

3. Someone mentioned that they asked for a "coupon" and got no resonse from us. Please let me know what you want and I will provide it if I can.

4. One post wanted to understand how Pulstar could work better than a spark plug. I think everyone now understands that Pulstar is different than a spark plug because it has an integrated capacitor, which energizes the spark much like a camera flash energizes light. So, we get a visibly larger spark, but then what happens? That larger spark ignites the fuel with a larger aperture than a spark plug. You can actually see this on our website with high speed photography. This is where is gets a little tricky. Suppose you were to set a field of hay on fire. Now hay burns at a fixed rate. If we light it with a match it would take so long for the field to burn, but if we light it with a blow torch the field will burn faster liberating the same BTUs in a shorter of time. In an engine this liberation of BTUs means more cylinder pressure, which converts to torque usable for power or fuel economy.

5. Duration of the spark - this might surprise you, but the duration of the spark event is the same as a spark plug. The ionization phase is about 5 microseconds, the streamer phase 2 and the resident phase about 30-50. What Pulstar does differently is at the beginning of the streamer phase we dump the accumulated power stored in the capacitor in 2 nanoseconds... highly compressed power! Remember the camera flash? Sort of like putting a flash bulb in your engine.

Guys, we are a new company with an exciting product, but we don't always get it right or have all the answers of how Pulstar works in the 74,000 vehicles listed on our website. However, we will stand behind our product and make sure every customer gets a fair deal. I welcome your comments, ideas and questions.

[SVOboy]

I can't make any comments on the plugs, but I'm glad to see someone from the company being upfront and honest with the FE community,

[trikkonceptz]

dparker,

I would be more than happy to trial a set in my vibe. If you check my fuel logs you'll see I drive over 100 miles per day in south florida heat.

My cars mpg's have become rather consistent, so increases would be easily noticed. In addition, to not just beg for free stuff, I would be more than happy to return the product after a predetermined amount of mileage in order for you to analyze for further improvements.

Drop me a PM if you are interested.

[elhigh]

Okay, I don't care if the guy's product can make the car run on chicken grease, just showing up here and sticking up for his product wins points from me.

I'm not laying down a Ben for plugs, but still - I'm giving the guy props.