Oh puleeze. High performance spark plugs are the high-performance way to separate a driver and their hard-earned money. A bunch of pseudo-scientific fluff and super-high advertising costs. (Think Monster Cable) I can understand spending the money on a quality longer-life plug using platinum or other precious metals because it will save you the pain of changing the plugs as often.

I used to fall for that crap back in my impressionable youth, but today's vehicles will not achieve ANY performance benefit from anything more than the stock plug. The demise of leaded gasolines mean you can easily get 100,000 miles or more out of a set of quality plugs. And when you consider how deep some manufacturers bury the plugs, that is a significant benefit.

Most of these "gearhead" TV shows are little more than thinly disguised infomercials. They do have some good tid-bits here and there, but they are primarily used to showcase a sponsor's product. I challenge anyone to take a modern engine with the stock plugs, put it on the dyno and take a reading. Then change out the plugs for a "performance" set and run it again. I'd wager a month's salary there won't be any differences greater than the uncertainty of the measurement equipment.

Don't waste your money.

I remember a "gimmicky" plug I believe was developed for Mercury outboards and later used in the Kawasaki Mach series. It was termed a "surface gap" plug. This plug worked well with the early CD ignition systems, in two strokes before synthetic oils were common.

Come to think of it, the key might have been the major increase in voltage.

...Sir P.T. Barnum would be proud!

...I've heard the Africa elephants work better with platinum plugs, while the Asian elephants work better with iridium plugs. And, the native-American elephants work better with surface-gap plugs (wink,wink).