Firestorm Spark Plugs, Increased Gas Mileage

If these claims were true, then these plugs would be in the block of every car made - just think what GM could do with a 44% increase in MPG for their fleet.... I don't see it happening.

Well, Senator, there is a long answer and there is a short answer. I like brevity so you get the short answer: NO. Spark plugs can't do most of these things.

I find it instructive that it is reported that this product was invented by the same guy (Robert Krupa) who invented the "Splitfire spark plug." The U.S. Federal Trade Commission had some adverse comments on the claims made for that product.

Rorbet Krupa did not invent the splitfire spark plug do your home work.

Thanks for the anwsers. But is there any advantage to a larger more agressive spark.

Thanks

Hi Del,

A great answer, I loved every word of it! But I do remember a similar plug used during the last war in Rolls Royce Merlin engines! As my father worked on these engines during the war he had one of their sparkplugs on his desk at home, he explained to me that it evened out the flame distribution in a the cylinders which then produce better fuel economy?

Spencer.

I suppose if you are fueling your car with snake oil it would ignite it better...

By replacing the "entire" ignition system in a modern car with a performance aftermarket one, the gains (HP or MPG) are small to none. Modern ignition systems are very good. Old cars are a different story.

Some high performance engines have dual spark plug configurations that increase the spark inside the combustion chamber. Also smaller airplanes with combustion engines run a dual spark plug configuration which has a power increase that is quite noticeable during runup when the magneto check is performed.

When you light a fire in a fireplace you can increase the heat to your fuel if you light it in several places and/or if you have a larger more powerful lighter. The engine has a certain amount of time for the gas to ignite and burn inside the engine and the quicker the better. A hotter spark or many sparks will light the fire much faster and almost ensure you get to burn all fuel during the cycle. However if you already burn all fuel in the cylinder a hotter spark is no help.

With fuel injection you get combustion feedback via the O2 sensor to the computer on how well the fuel is burning. However in my experience the O2 sensor only works for a few thousand miles and then the computer goes into a default mode which may or may not be the correct mixture for your combustion.

My opinion is that I want as hot a spark as I can get and they could be worth a try if they really put off spark like they show in the video.

I don't disagree with this at all in pricipal.

BUT... I do have a problem with how it relates to the scam being perpetrated above.

The main advantage of dual sources of ignition is a faster propagation of the burn because each spark is now responsible for igniting only 1/2 the volume of the chamber. You will note in your examples that the placement of the dual spark plugs is always diametrically opposed to each other. Because a combustion chamber in an engine has a limited time to convert the energy from chemical to heat to motion, a faster propagation of the flame CAN indeed sometimes net additional output power. However a hotter ignition from the same single point is not necessarily going to propagate a burn any faster. Once ignited, the chemical to heat conversion is all about volume, not so much the initial ignition temperature. All you really need is enough to start it.

And to that fireplace analogy I also want to point out, does the fireplace get any hotter if you light it in 1 place, 2 places or 120 places? Ultimately, no. But it does ignite and get to temperature faster. So to use your fireplace analogy, does it matter if the flame on a match head is hotter if you still have only one match? Not much, and only if your fuel is difficult to ignite. Gasoline has never been known for that!

Every person on this thread seems to be completely confident that this "out of the box" idea is bogus. I'm just saying that further research must be completed before I will agree or disagree.

I would like to point out that if one were to take a fouled out spark plug and place it in a previously perfectly running engine or if you have a spark plug with a very small spark gap (<1/32") your previously perfectly running engine will definitely not run nearly as well as before the change if it runs at all. There is a reason why every engine maintenance book specifies spark gap size. That reason is to try to ensure the gasoline gets enough spark for complete ignition. Now where does this complete ignition occur in the power stroke? Is it just after TDC or half way down the power stroke? Or is half the fuel running out the exhaust? Put a spark plug in the tailpipe. They advance the timing based on RPM to start ignition before TDC because at 6000 RPM the power stroke has < 3 milliseconds for ignition and that includes the advanced timing. For the most part however spark gap check is just to make people who are tuning up their engines look at their spark plugs and verify they're in good shape.

Now how does this compare to these spark plugs?....that's what I'd like to find out. Can they burn the gasoline faster in the power stroke thereby allowing more push while the compression is still high? I am not afraid to try to figure it out.

Every person on this thread seems to be completely confident that this "out of the box" idea is bogus.

"Out of the box" ideas are neither inherently good nor bad. This particular scammer's previous "out of the box" idea did not work, and there is no reason to think that this one will work as advertised when evaluated on its merits. This is far from the first scam that has suggested that multiple gap plugs somehow make a bigger, more powerful spark. Legitimate vendors (NGK, Champion, Bosch, etc) have all made multi-gap plugs, and they all agree that the potential benefit is only in spark plug life, not in performance. The spark will always occur across the smallest available gap. Once that gap has eroded (becoming larger) then the spark jumps across the new smallest gap, and so forth. So in any multi-gap plug, the spark jumps across just one gap, just as in any normal spark plug. In your research, visit the sites of the major spark plug makers. Also read a copy of the Bosch automotive handbook, which treats many areas of automotive engineering, and is particularly good for ignition control, combustion control, etc.

The Bosch handbook mentions the importance of avoiding misfires many times -- these misfires can be damaging to the catalytic converter. Thus the ignition system, including the plugs, must consistently ignite the mixture. Combustion, after the instant of ignition, is a separate matter, and therefore you will find in your research that the two events are treated separately. Therefore, the following question you posed would seem nonsensical to those familiar with engines. "Now where does this complete ignition occur in the power stroke? Is it just after TDC or half way down the power stroke?" I think you know that ignition occurs well before TDC, and perhaps meant to ask at what point is combustion complete.

Or is half the fuel running out the exhaust? Of course not. In realistic and simple terms, in today's automotive engines, none of the fuel "runs out the exhaust" and into the catalytic converter. (See the Bosch automotive handbook for details on combustion and the width of the "catalytic converter window".) Spark plugs have very little to do with combustion efficiency, and are probably the most mature technology employed in engines -- in fact, a 1950 era spark plug can be threaded into a current engine, and if gapped to roughly 1mm, the current engine will run just fine, passing all current emission tests.

Put a spark plug in the tailpipe.

OK?? Should I just weld it in?

They advance the timing based on RPM to start ignition before TDC because at 6000 RPM the power stroke has < 3 milliseconds for ignition and that includes the advanced timing. My guess is that what you are saying is that combustion must occur in < 3 ms. That is not too far off. 180 degrees of crank travel is .005 seconds rotation, and although advance adds to that 180 degrees, the exhaust valve opening before BDC subtracts from it. This has little to do with the spark plug, however, which does not spark for anything close to the full duration of combustion.

Can they burn the gasoline faster in the power stroke thereby allowing more push while the compression is still high? In your research, you will find that the answer is no. Spark plugs only start combustion, and have little influence over the speed of flame front travel. This will become more obvious to you as you read up on flame propagation. Immediately after the first instant of ignition, a ball of flame forms around the spark plug electrode. Once that ball of flame has progressed 1/8 inch out from the spark gap, then anything happening in the spark gap is of no consequence -- the fuel there has already been burned. So, again, the spark needs only be sufficient to get the fire going -- thus, the fact that 1950 era spark plugs work fine in new engines. The newer plugs (with iridium electrodes, etc, simply last longer and maintain their gap longer.)

I'm glad you are not afraid to try to figure this stuff out. If you have a university nearby with an engine lab, you can see this stuff in operation, with high speed photos of flame propagation, etc. Nearly as good, however, is a reading of books on the subject.

get a grip, the reason aircraft piston engines have two spark plugs and two independent ignitions systems is for safety. There may be some increase in performance but that isn't why they make them that way. You don't want to have a spark failure on takeoff, could be disasterous.

OK, here is a grip:

There is a mandatory procedure before take off, to verify that both - admittedly redundant - ignition systems work. The engine is brought up to approximately 1500 RPM (it varies) and one then the other circuit is shut off. It is expected to see a drop in RPM for each. Lack thereof means the circuit is not working.

The point here is that a 50 to 100 RPM drop, with minimal load, is pretty significant. Dual ignition is important performance wise, even if in this particular application it is not the primary goal.

According to Krupa, the increase in fuel economy comes from the ability to lean out the air-fuel mixture from 14.7:1 to somewhere around 24:1. He never states that you were only burning half of your fuel to start with, he is saying that he is able to send less fuel into the chamber for the same amount of power or more.

Honda had a lean burn system years ago that used a stoichiometric mixture of 14.7:1 for ignition, then made up the rest of the charge with a leaner mixture. The overall mix was 22:1. This is not something that you can accomplish with just a new plug - they had two separate fuel systems, one lean and one rich.

Obviously, then Krupa is lying, big time. You don't get the "same amount of power or more" from running that lean. You get more power from running slightly richer than 14.7:1, not from running leaner. Hard to believe as this may seem, combustion engineers are not really completely moronic idiots who have not already tried big sparks, little sparks, long sparks, short sparks, multiple plugs, etc. A spark plug has nothing to do with power output, as long as it starts the fire, ... which they all do.

Engineers engineer. Frauds steal.

You cannot get a spark plug to fire at higher voltage or power. As long as its the same mixture and condition (pressure, temp) in the combustion chamber, voltage will build up across the gap until it ignite and it'll be the same voltage across the same gap.

People tuning engine have proven stock ignition work from stock 200HP to 500+HP in turbo charged engine. So there is no reason to "upgrade".

I do notice with a MSD 6A box, my idle is more stable. +/-10rpm instead of +/-50.

To be sure. What I wouldn't give for all the cars I might have bought and held onto...

I am wondering if anyone looked into the scientific validity of this solution. Pulstar Pulse Plugs.

They call them Pulse Plugs and I must admit it sounds plausible.

The economy claims are more reasonable, and the concept could make sense.

Keeping with the wood fire analogy, you can start your fire faster with an oxyfuel torch in a few seconds vs. a few minutes with an electric heat gun. At the end of the day your fire is started anyway but slower and with a lot of wasted energy in the second case.

Having said that, I have no idea if anyone more qualified has dug deeper into the claims.

I have to reply to this because after looking at this stuff a little bit and reading claims from folks all over the internet, I think the impact is affected by the engine and the way the engine runs...duh. Anyway some engines run differently than others (double duh) and some people claim to have experienced increases in performance when they changed to these spark plugs (might be bogus).

I know that you need to get the spark plug that will fit into the hole and there are a few different styles/sizes. Also many spark plug insulators and cases are rated to cool at different rates or run at different temperatures. Now with that being established, if one were to place the wrong temperature rated spark plug in the wrong engine then the results would be less than exemplary. Pre-ignition problems and misfiring would almost be expected especially if the new spark plug does not cool fast enough or runs too hot. Some of this can be mitigated with higher octane fuel which is another forum topic.

Anyway I still would not mind to try this if the manufacturers will show test data with plug temperatures vs time and plug max temp or etc so I could at least try to match up my engine with the right plug. I think these guys need to complete much more testing and produce results with real data before I'm gonna try their product.

Hello jfcayon:

Truthfully about the only investigation I have done is to watch the video. My opinion is based on my experiences and thermodynamics. Modern automotive engines have been forced to evolve by emissions requirements. Mandated emission requirements preclude unburned fuel going out the tailpipe. There is room left to improve efficiency , however it is going to require more than a sparkplug to make substantial improvements.

A 50% increase I would consider a substantial improvement, it starts to push theoretical thermal dynamics limits inherent in metallic internal combustion engines.

Personal experience has taught me to apply the old adage, if it sounds too good to be true . I would be much more likely to thoroughly investigate something that made a reasonable claim, had they claimed a 2% increase in fuel economy I would've been intrigued.

I wouldn't go as far as to say the sparkplugs have no potential applications. Engines with poor fuel distribution as THE 440 SIXPACK in my avatar could potentially see a performance improvement. If I was still actively dragracing I quite possibly would buy a set of firestorm sparkplugs and check their claim against the Klondike clock. Unlike contemporary emission controled engines there is plenty of unburned fuel lying around, and with current fuel prices standing behind the road runner at idle literally and figuratively can bring a tear to your eye.

I think these claims are extraordinarily bizarre. There is no "circuit" that fits in the space shown in the cutaway of this plug that takes 50 watts of peak power and converts it into 1,000,000 watts. The total power in watt seconds cannot change: that power is supplied by the ignition system. So the duration must be 50/1,000,000 times as long in other words, it fires 20,000 times quicker. There is no electronic device that could accomplish that feat. (A microscopic coil would do the reverse, a capacitor would 1. breakdown and 2. not quicken the spark) Only a booster gap would have a potential benefit for a partly fouled plug -- but booster gap plugs are readily available, for the same price as any other plug. In a well-maintained ordinary engine they are of no use. I doubt that the gap can be ionized and the firing occur appreciably faster than the current standard, by anything that would fit in a spark plug. But who would want to do such a thing??

There can be an advantage to long duration spark, but these days there is certainly no advantage to a far shorter duration spark, and there are definite disadvantages to shortening duration: If the mixture moving past the plug at any instant is not just right for combustion, a slightly longer duration will make it more likely that a new chunk of mixture blows by. Long duration sparks have been demonstrated to work better in hard to ignite mixtures. There is no advantage to shortening duration.

Their test data shows a 1.5% improvement in power. It would be possible to rig the engine to perform very slightly better on one plug gap than another, and I note that the gaps are different for the test conditions. But do I believe a 1.5% improvement would be realistic for a typical unrigged engine. No. Do I believe the 20,000 times shorter duration. No. Do I believe that shorter duration is a benefit -- absolutely not, and there is lots of evidence to the contrary.

The Bosch Automotive handbook says, for instance, (regarding capacitive discharge ignition) that "for many applications, the spark duration of .1 to .3 ms is too brief to ensure that the air fuel mixture will ignite reliably." Clearly, making it briefer yet would be not and advantage but a disadvantage. But the reason these plugs work as well as another plug is that the don't really do what they say they do -- if they did, they'd be useless: their duration would be a tiny fraction of that required. They are ordinary plugs, and probably not subject the the quality control standards of plugs from reputable manufacturers. In the same way, the saving grace of fuel line magnets is that they do nothing -- they don't reduce performance.

They hope that the average customer does not know how ignition works. Unfortunately, there are millions of hard working people who can't be expected to know this stuff. Slick, sleazy, scam.

Re your analogy, a better one would be this: If you are careful, you can pass your hand quickly through an acetylene torch flame. Nothing happens. Now hold a match under your hand for a couple seconds. Ouch. Duration helps start combustion.

You mean they didn't fit an itty-bitty transformer inside there after all?!? DANG! Well, there goes yet another investment strategy... But, hey, if the spark duration was extremely short, say in the fraction of a femtosecond range, it probably wouldn't ignite much of anything, would it? Now there's a mileage increasing plug for ya! One tank of gas could last a lifetime...

Dad found a set of plugs that increased MPG by around 40% and gave more power and met all the claims made!!!!!!

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Gap intentional so you can think about the response before reading on.

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It wasn't that the new plugs were spectacular, just that the old ones had done their time and were "shot".

The efficiency gains (measured against a background of an out of tune and poorly maintained engine) with new plugs was fantastic, but it only brought it back to manufacturer's original condition.

Liars, damned liars and statisticians (mathematicians).

well where the hell do you find them?