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Splitfire plugs

3388 Views 21 Replies 11 Participants Last post by  don oller
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Ok, so when I bought my wing, I didn't know how old the plugs were, and figured that replacing them would be a good idea. So, I went down to my local autoparts store, and tried to get some NGK's. Well, they didn't stock the NGK's that the 1200 requires, so I put in an order for some splitfires. At $35 for the set of 4, I figured at very least I should be able to see a LITTLE bit of performance gains.



WRONG!



What I got was no power from idle to 2500k rpm, a loping idle that almost killed the engine, poor fuel efficiency, and since I thought "Hey, their new, it must be some other thing that broke" The little buggers cost me hours of time.

Yes, I got the right ones. Yes I gapped them correctly, and with a wire-style gapper.

In my humble opinion, don't stray from the NGK. (Heh, that rhymes!)
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That's too bad philcsand.

I've been usinga set ofIrridium plugs for a few years now and have never had any problems with these.

But, I have heard of people having similar problems as you've experienced with the Splitfires.

Vic
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I hate to say it but the Spitfire plugs are just a gimmick. They have been around for years, in the 60s they were marketed by JC Whitney under a different name. Take a look at the the Feds complaint filed against them:

http://www.adminresources.com/psa/PSA00048.PDF
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Just printed that out... going to use it as ammunition if they won't give me my money back
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The JCWhitney plugs were Fire Injectors. Different than anything available today really. It had a center electrode and a ring around the center with 6 grooves in it, basically giving you a center electrode with 6 possible ground points. We used them once in a while back in the 70's.

More crap maybe, but these plugs look interesting:

http://www.robertstanley.biz/firestorm.htm

Raymond
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KRUPA: I found the SplitFire by accident. I am solely responsible for getting it into manufacturing and marketing.



I'll stick with my NGK's. If this guy was responsable for the splitfire, he can take his plug and you-know-what. :cheeky1:
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Silicon Sam wrote:
The JCWhitney plugs were Fire Injectors. Raymond
Yep I've seen them too, but JCW did sell a fork tongued spark plug too! Oh well we all get had once in awhile. I remember putting water injection in my old '63 Dodge truck. Several of the guys at work bought these kits and installed them on their cars and were bragging about them. I though it was BS but copied their $20 systems with about $2 worth of aquarium tubing, an aquarium air needle valve and a plastic jug. Set the thing up using the directions from the kits the guys had. Of course with careful measuring of mileage and 1/4 mile time before and after there was no change in performance or fuel burn. The system used less than a fraction of an ounce per mile, couldn't have done much. The other guys continued to swear by thier units but I noticed some months later they didn't have them on any more.
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I had the Splitfires in my 1500 several years back, when everyone was singing their praises. I had bad experiences with them (rough idle, terrible flat spot on take-off and I had to give it handfuls of throttle to make it move). I'm convinced that most of the people that said these plugs were great never actually used them and that they were just echoing what they heard from other people.
I wnet back to stock plugs after that and everything was back to normal.
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philcsand, actually in some instances those multi-electrode plugs do work somewhat. Like in oil fouling conditions or weak spark engines. Unfortunately they don't work worth a hoot in lost spark situations like your Wing that fires every other plug at reverse polarity.


Twisty
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The Feds info is an interesting read after you cut through the legaleeze(sic). I'm using NGK Iridiums. I bought them as much for the longevity as a performance enhancer. I frankly don't see where the bike is behaving any different that with the NGK standards that were in there.

I replaced the plugs not because I had any problems but because the log that came with the bike indicated that the last plugs installed were Splitfires. I had heard or read something about the Splitfires loosing parts. Whether or not there's any truth to this, I wasn't wanting to take a chance. Low and behold I didn't have them anyway.:?

Advance sells them for about $8 a plug.

Regards,

Hobie
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exavid wrote:
I remember putting water injection in my old '63 Dodge truck. [/quote]
Hey man I forgot all about those things! I remember when they were all the rage and promised the typical "more HP and more MPG".

Man that brings back memories - unfortunately none of them good ones :p
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For me it all goes back to the idea that if these gimmicks actually worked they would be bought up by the vehicle manufacturers and put in their products. Every maker is looking for an edge to make their cars, bikes or whatever better than the competition so it's unlikely they would pass up the possibility to improve their product with such a simple addition. Any piece of junk they have to sell with puffed up ads in magazines and "as seen on TV" type sales has got to be such a small operation that Ford or GM could buy them out with pocket change if they wanted to or they'd find a legal way to get around a patent and add it to their vehicles. After all, how long did it take for all automakers to find a way to get around the patent on the electric starter?
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exavid wrote:
For me it all goes back to the idea that if these gimmicks actually worked they would be bought up by the vehicle manufacturers and put in their products. Every maker is looking for an edge to make their cars, bikes or whatever better than the competition so it's unlikely they would pass up the possibility to improve their product with such a simple addition. Any piece of junk they have to sell with puffed up ads in magazines and "as seen on TV" type sales has got to be such a small operation that Ford or GM could buy them out with pocket change if they wanted to or they'd find a legal way to get around a patent and add it to their vehicles. After all, how long did it take for all automakers to find a way to get around the patent on the electric starter?
exavid, actually water injection works quite well. High performance aircraft, even tractors of the 30's & 40's used it. We have come close to releasing it for production on low production automobiles a couple of times.

The thing to remember is: water injection is like Nitrous Oxide it is just an enabler not a primary fuel. Water injection allows higher compression for more powerfrom the same size engine, allows more turbo or blower boost, allows slightly more spark advance to be run,allows the use of a lower octane fuel, does a great job of eliminating combustion chamber carbon, cools valves, the steam it produces promotes flame travel in the combustion chamber & removes latent heat.

The drawbacks for production are the main reason it isn't used. Any failure of the system that allows water to continue into the engine is deadly for the engine. Keeping the water system topped off by the end user was & still is a big concern. Cold weather usage is iffy at best as system heaters or alcohol is needed.

BUT, just adding water to the intake doesn't add much by itself, itallows other improvements to add up to a power gain.

When you added that water system to your car (or truck) if you would have leaned the carb slightly at light load cruise & bumped the mid range ign timing up a couple of degrees you would have seen a slight mileage improvement.

Twisty
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twisty wrote:
exavid, actually water injection works quite well. High performance aircraft, even tractors of the 30's & 40's used it. We have come close to releasing it for production on low production automobiles a couple of times.

BUT, just adding water to the intake doesn't add much by itself, itallows other improvements to add up to a power gain.

When you added that water system to your car (or truck) if you would have leaned the carb slightly at light load cruise & bumped the mid range ign timing up a couple of degrees you would have seen a slight mileage improvement.

Twisty
Yep I've seen it on an aircraft engine and know the history of water injection. The point I was making was that it was sold to a lot of folks in the early 1970s as a gimmick. If you are adding the water to a vacuum port in the intake manifold with no control on the flow other than a fixed setting needle valve, with no adjustments whatsoever to the rest of the fuel and ignition systems, not to mention the fact that these things used such a tiny amount of water it couldn't have had as much effect as driving on a foggy day. Those particular systems were about as effective as sticking magnets on your fuel line.
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And the problem with magnets on the fuel line???? They energize the molecular structure of the string of carbon atoms that will then enhance the harmonic influence of the radial burn thingy.:cheeky1::action::action::action::clapper:.

Hobie(full of magnet pooppoo:p)
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And the magnets help align your persona chakras with the planets thus bringing you to a further level of elnightenment with the gods of internal combustion.... or something like that.... has anybody seen my drink? I seem to havemisplaced it.

.... a magnetic Buddah ain't no plastic Jesus, but it ain't bad!
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SoulvilleUSA wrote:
And the magnets help align your persona chakras with the planets thus bringing you to a further level of elnightenment with the gods of internal combustion.... or something like that.... has anybody seen my drink? I seem to havemisplaced it.

.... a magnetic Buddah ain't no plastic Jesus, but it ain't bad!
Yeah but the bike always wants to turn North! God help you if you pass another vehicle with magnets, gonna be one big crash!
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Yes, but, if you flip the magnet over you can then travel South.

Vic
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Did I mention that I have a secret magnet that makes the orbs in the sky change from red to green? No, really , I've....I've.. no really, I'm ah comfortably numb.

Go for the NGK standard plugs and know that you'll do just fine.

Hobie


Wait, since we're discussing energy, let's all recite our mantra: ohm, ohm, ohvolta ohmmmmmmm.:p
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It just goes to show philcsand, all that glitters is definitely not gold! ;)
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