That test is fundamentally flawed. Changing plugs that have 40k miles on them will yield gains, even when replacing with fresh oem ones. In pleased with ngk iridiums at $6-7 a pop.

 

i read that article too. I think it was import tuner.

 

you don't know that for sure jonny. if they tested with new platinums and new pulstars, the test would be valid. skeptics will always be skeptics though. i don't know if i;m sold on it, but if it were true, it would be the best bang for the buck.

 

did they test/compare new plugs to new?

 

i dont recall, but i believe that they did do dyno runs on new oem ones, and new pulsar plugs with gains of 10whp.

but i might be wrong.

 

The test was in Modified Mag. The 350Z roadster we used was basically brand new. Had 1200 miles on the engine and OE plugs. The gains we saw were not, therefore, a function of the OE plugs being old and worn out, like jonnylaw suggested.

This Z, which belongs to SG Motorsports, did over 40 pulls while Sasha developed his intake and exhaust systems on the Dynapack hub dyno and produced a best of 239.9 whp. We baselined it on the same day as we installed the Pulstar plugs and got a baseline of 239.7 whp, so we know the baseline was as fair and accurate as possible. After installing the Pulstars we then did 5 pulls. Best results were on the 3rd pull (engine started to get heat-soaked after that), showing the almost 11 whp gain published. Average gains over the 5 pulls was just under 10 whp.

I'm not saying run out and buy these plugs, since we've only tested them on one engine, but this first test showed us enough potential in the bang-for-the-buck category that we are very curious to test them in more applications to see if similar gains are achieved. Going to try them in my G35, my K24-powered Honda Civic, our project S14 with SR20DET, our project Honda Accord with H22A, etc. You'll see results from this round of testing in a summer issue of the mag.

 

^^dave I'm not disputing ur results or ur test, another article already printed (maybe importer) is already on stands. I thought the tested car had 40k mile on it and since the article did not mention using new oem plugs, I assumed they didn't.

 

also dave, I believe modified should have tested brand new oem plugs. 1200 miles is still 1200 miles. Its not an ideal test. Plus, it would be better to test other performance plugs as well. If 6 dollar performance plugs provide similar gains more safely, y spend 5x as much???

Until I see that test, I remain a skeptic.

 

I'm still skeptical too, jonny, and we will test them against other performance plugs so we can see how the Pulstars perform relative to iridiums.

FYI, we looked at the plugs in Sasha's Z and there was really no reason to swap in new ones. 1200 miles isn't enough to degrade plug performance. I've done a lot of plug testing over the years, on street, road race, and drag race motors and plugs don't start to lose performance until they've seen considerably more than 1200 break-in miles.

Tests are rarely "ideal", especially on the limited budget we've got at a magazine, but we do try our best to control for whatever variables we can. But in scientific terms there's no substitute for sample size, and our test is just 1 point of data. What we really need is a much bigger sample size to confirm what sort of gains the Pulstars consistently produce. Over time I'm sure we'll see more and more test results and eventually we'll have a big enough sample that we can start to draw some reasonable conclusions. Until that time, it's perfectly reasonable to remain skeptical. Some people will want to try these right away because that's their nature. For others, they're going to want to see a lot more test data before they plop down their $150.

 

^^understood dave. I'll keep an eye out for further testing.

 

subscribing to thread
cant wait to see more dynos...
Also, are pulstar running hotter, colder, or the same as OEM?
Anyone?

 

bump...
????

 

I believe they run the same temp as OE, but I'll check with them to confirm.

 

If it was this easy to generate more mJ at the spark gap, OEM's would only have to wire $0.50 2000mF caps in series with the coil outputs. That's basically all the Pulstars are. An integral capacitance plug vs. a central CDI (capacitive discharge ignition). You would be better off with a real CDI unit instead of these little joke plugs.

http://www.thenismoshop.com/ikorb.ph...tegory_id=4785

 

For accuracy the link below highlights the independent tests performed with this product. Two of these are mentioned in this thread; DSport Magazine in March on an '04 G35C and Dave's Modified Magazine test in the April issue.

http://www.pulstarplug.com/faq.html#11

The DSport experiment was conducted with new plugs alongside the Pulstar plugs (ABA testing). Their results aren't as positive as Modified (+5.2whp) but do corroborate other's findings.

Pulstar's website also addresses the concern of high cylinder temps in their FAQ section. Take this for what it is worthdunno:

Q: Will the high power of Pulstar™ plugs in any way harm my engine?
A: No. The high power of Pulstar™ pulse plugs occurs within 2 nanoseconds (30 billionths of a second), which is enough time to ignite fuel, but not enough time to overheat the combustion chamber or engine parts.

BTW - I am attempting to endorse Pulstar. Just providing information.