So I came across an article about Pulstar Plugs. I'm a little behind on that knowledge as from what I understand this specific product has been out for close to 3 or 4 months now (maybe more). This particular article didn't go into much detail about the plug itself, but it did show a dynograph representing a delta between using standard spark plugs and pulstar plugs. The particular car in question was a Nissan 350z with basic bolt ons: intake, full exhaust (sans headers). I believe the base run was around 239 whp and the pulstar run yielded 250 whp, an 11 whp gain from these plugs. On the surface this is actually very impressive, especially proportional to these power levels. That's about a 5% increase in power just by swapping spark plugs. Theoretically (VERY theoretically of course) if I recorded the same results on my car, which dynos 523 awhp, I would see about a 26 awhp gain, which would be VERY noticeable on the butt dyno. So are these plugs the end all be all plug? Probably, but only for NA cars that aren't full race application machines.

So I went over to the Pulstar website to see what the deal is with these magic plugs. From what I gather, after reading their description, these plugs basically have a coil in a coil system (you're vehicle's coil feeding the spark plugs mini coil) to basically concentrate the energy fed into the spark plug into a time-constrained brighter spark. By this I mean: Instead of transferring the energy from your coil directly into a glowing spark, the energy is collected into a coil that is essentially a capacitor. The result is a spark that is hotter and way more intense. The draw back is, the coil can only use the energy that was given to it by the main coil, which means to concentrate that energy, there will be a slight delay in your spark, and the spark itself will be a fraction of the duration. The delay in spark won't be too much of a consequence as the delay is so short it's unnoticeable even by high engine cyclic times. The shortened spark duration, however, is something that could prove to be a disadvantage on certain applications.

The first problem is that the plugs they have right now are too hot for my particular application (20+ psi of boost), if they produce some colder plugs, which I'm sure they will, it may be useful. In the meantime, the temperature rating of these plugs are more geared toward naturally aspirated cars of all flavors (stock or highly modified) and turbocharged cars running minimal modifications on STOCK boost (8-12 psi). Overall, it appears that this plug will be a godsend to naturally aspirated applications. With high boost high volume applications, the dramatically reduced duration of spark would have detrimental effects to the driveability of the car during wide open throttle conditions. From what I've read, some high boosted applications that have tested these plugs have suffered misfires, whereas high horsepower naturally aspirated applications (300+ hp) have seen incredible gains (upwards of 17 whp and beyond).

The final blow to my opinion about these plugs: cost. Price of Pulstar = prohibitively expensive. The going rate for a Pulstar plug is between $20-$25 per plug. That's over $130 for my v6 application. There are some certain applications where this would be a justifiable expense (provided these Pulstar's have a decent lifetime), and that would be on some seriously large naturally aspirated applications, such as a porshce 6 cylinder or any variety of strung out v8's. The prospect of gaining 20 or more whp from these plugs and improving the area under the power curve altogether from a $160 purchase would prove to be well worth the investment.

Overall, the Pulstar Plug is an absolutely brilliant idea, albeit a tad expensive idea. This plug is perfect for naturally aspirated applications, and I expect to see alot of g35's, 350z's, all motor hondas, naturally aspirated porsches, corvettes, and maybe even a viper or two use these plugs with excellent results, enough to make very noticeable gains in track times and how well they do against their highway competition (should they be into that thing). In the meantime, guys and gals who are using high boost applications probably won't be seeing this as a bad ass solution for some quick power anytime soon.

I implore you to check it out for yourself at Pulstar's Website