although people claim power gains, no one has tested them for reliability, i've had them in for almost 4k, and my car idles bad, i think an electrode broke off.... just fyi...

 

WOW, Thank god i did not buy them. I was about 2 hours from buying them today. I saw them the at the docs office y-day Motor Trend Mag. I went to their website and all, it looked very nice overall. I was going to post up a thread on it to ask the G35 community but first i TRIED THE SEAAAAAARRRCCCCHHHHH BUTTON! and found this. Thanks for the info guys!

 

I've been running them for about 15,000 miles now and have had no problem but this is scary! It certainly makes me think I should take them out and I will probably do so shortly.

 

I spoke with Pulstar about this and they argued that premature failure has been rare and most likely caused by mis-gapping. They say that any engine failures were almost certainly because of some other problems, which to me sounds pretty likely... I mean why would these plugs cause engine failure??? Bad predetonation or a lean burn situation can lead to piston failure but any lean burn would be a fueling problem, not down to plugs. From what I understand, predetonation is caused by early timing, low octane fuel, or engine lugging. I just can't see how or why these plugs could lead to piston or engine failure.

I expect that some engines will fail, whether they have these plugs or not. In those which have these plugs they will be pointed at as a potential cause.

Pulse plugs are far less tested than regular plugs, they are a new technology. They will likely have problems more often than old technology. They've sold tens of thousands of sets, versus millions of regular plugs. That means current users are effectively beta testers. Pulstar intend to prove the reliability of the plugs over time and hope to have the plugs made standard, but that will take time.

Personally, I kind of doubt these plugs will cause problems, at least the vast majority of the time. The risk reward relationship however is assymetrical, you get a small benefit for taking a risk of a big loss. The probability of that loss is small in my opinion, but is unknown in reality. If there were a lot of problems they'd probably be out of business, and maybe they will be down the road, who knows.

The engine failure story in this thread is an "I have a buddy" story, and involves an engine swap. That leaves plenty of room for other tuning or fueling issues to be an actual cause.

Still, I do worry now that somehow the plugs could cause an engine failure and that the warranty could be invalidated as well, leaving an owner well and truly up the creek without a paddle.

 

^^^
I suspect they will not be in business long.

How many engines have you heard of failing in a G35 not related to oil consumption or over-boosted forced induction applications?

My thinking is this: When problems occur 4-5K after an install of a part, it is almost certainly due to the unreliability of the part. When problems occur immediately after install or very shortly thereafter, it is probably due to installation error of some sort.

In the case of Pulstar Plugs, RISK >>>>> REWARD

 

Too good to be true

 

Im glad I stuck with good ole NGK.

 

Have you heard of a G35 engine loss with these plugs? I haven't seen any reference to that occuring.

 

OK, instead of engine failure how about severe engine problems?

 

From a Lotus forum about a Mazda GB purchase...

 

Can you reference that? Point out a thread? I just haven't seen any first hand references to an actual problem that went beyond plug failure, or even second hand references other than that one below referring to the engine swap.

 

ive been a mechanic since 96' and i swear by ngk plugs. autolites are good too. but i never use anything else but those two and i have never, never had a problem. unless it was something i did like dropping one and closing the gap and then installing it

 

my friend has it on his car and so far he has had no problems, in fact, his start up has been consistant, and he gets a consistant mid range power gain
maybe there was something originally wrong with the engines that have been failing
iono, but i guess it can happen, after all, this is a new product, its just like vista!
lol
about these ngk plugs, and autolites. how good are they? i wanna be on the safe side and get either ngk or autolites. what kind of gains am i looking at????
i have an 06 coupe auto(unfortunately)

 

you’re not going to get any notable gains from spark plus... even if you index them its doubtful you will see significant gains on a dyno and highly unlikely that your butt dyno will notice any difference.

 

Wow thanks for the notice!