"CAUTION: Pulstar model recommendations are for stock, unmodified engines. If you have added an aftermarket turbocharger, supercharger, nitrous or any other product that increases displacement or compression to your engine you will require a colder heat range pulse plug in order to avoid possible damage to your engine. For these applications please see our other great product at www.directhits.com or call us at 888-800-6700 "
So they say you need a colder heat range PULSE PLUG. And then say for these apps, go see this site. I checked out the site, and it states that the direct hit ones are spark plugs. WTF? http://www.directhits.com/howitworks2.html
Anyway, let me know if you’ve used these on any car yourself, and your thoughts on it.
Sasha did the test they had in Modified on his Z Roadster. There’s a thread on here about it already. Search.
I’ve heard from some people they work pretty well but can fail quickly, and they’re pretty expensive, but I don’t have any true first hand knowledge with it. Sasha is the only one on here I know of that has actually used them in their vehicle.
Reason why I made this is because I did search here and didn’t find much. Had I known about Modified’s test and Sasha’s thread and the fact that he used the brand Pulstar and not pulse in the text, we’d be talking about something else. So thanks for pointing out Sasha’s Z…
So I guess from what you’re saying…bottomline is the risk of a shorter life isn’t worth the difference in cost? Personally, I was more interested in the burn efficiency / getting more mileage out of my system rather than looking for +hp. I’m still skeptical about this though mainly because of the cost (about $25/plug according to Pulstar). Doesn’t seem worth it, especially if it’s true they don’t last as long as conventional plugs.
We’ve seen good results on N/A cars but apparently turbo guys are having problems with them.
Lance and the boys at Pantera-EFI did some chamber testing on them…below is Lance’s statement.
"My first test in the CO-2 chamber (eight plug) showed an increase in photon emission with the Pulstar vs the NGK sparkplug.
My guess is that the energy is released in a shorter time, which is what they state.
This would be similar to increasing the spark advance, this could result in a power increase.
The pressure inside the chamber was increased to 300 PSI using 100 PSI steps. The Pulstar started to NOT produce an even spark,
then as the pressure was increased to 400 PSI NO spark. The NTK’s continued to spark evenly. The pressure was reduced to 100 PSI,
the Pulstar would NOT produce an even spark, very little firing if any.
What was found :
The Pulstar plug was damaged by high voltage required to fire into a chamber (cylinder) when the enviroment would be similar to a high compression or “boosted” engine.
I spoke to Lou, the inventor, he agreed, then stated that there was a problem with the construction of the insulator material.
He stated that he had a new design and would send me the new design Pulstars. "
happy240, hector, do you remember if any of your guys mentioned anything about fuel efficiency and if they’re getting more km’s to a tank?
i wonder if it was the capacitors themselves that eventually failed because of the bad insulator. i was surprised they managed to get an even spark in such harsh conditions using capacitors for their idea.
i just checked out their site again and on their fuel economy calculator thing it outputs amount of co2 saved. not sure how they get this number but it also tells you that the pulse’s have a cleaner burn. i agree that it sounds very similar to a timing advance but there’s a pressure difference for the timing of both plug types. in order to see the difference, if you advance a regular spark plug to have the “same effect” as the pulse plugs, the cyl pressure should be less. if you slightly advance you’re still pulling away from your stoic ratio so less complete of a burn? so the pulse plugs must really only have a good effect at and closely around stoic.
i guess in order to have these for a turbo it just has to be tuned right and the plugs would need proper insulator sleeves. maybe this checks out with hector’s turbo civic (not sure about the sleeves).