The story of the surface gap plugs.... they are indeed aircraft plugs. My
father-in-law was "living" in Germany at the end of World War II (he had been a
POW of the Germans) and had an old beat up motorcycle. It badly needed plugs
but there were none to be found-so he went over to an abandoned German air
field looking for a wrecked motorcycle. He didn't find one but he found many,
many wrecked German planes. He pulled plugs out of the planes until he found
one that fit-all of the plugs in the German planes were surface gap plugs (he
had never seen them before). He swore that the surface gap plugs were far
superior to the normal "side" electrode plugs. He said his motorcycle got
double the gas mileage and went much faster then it had ever gone before (he
even managed to dump his pregnant wife-my mother in law-in a snow bank!-while
she was expecting my wife). Of course he was comparing a worn out plug with a
new (or at least newer) surface gap plug.
He used them in all of his cars here in the States and he even got me a set for
my Hillman. I might even still have them if I look around hard enough.
Jan
J Arzt <humber_snipe@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I had a set of those surface-gap plugs in my old VW Squareback, and they
were great! I've been told they were aircraft spec plugs, but have never
verified that.
A good plug of a similar nature is a Bosch Super, W7DTC. It's a triple
electrode plug, of identical heat range to the (shudder) Champion N9Y. VW
uses them as a "long-life" plug for the 80's vintage Golfs and Jettas, and
give them a life expectancy of over 30k miles. I've used them in my Alpine
with good results.
Jon Arzt
>From: jeyerman@ix.netcom.com
>Reply-To: jeyerman@ix.netcom.com
>To: Jay_Laifman@countrywide.com
>CC: alpines@autox.team.net, William Lewis
>Subject: Spark plug gap
>Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 11:24:13 -0400
>
>Many, many years ago there was a spark plug sold that was a surface gap
>plug (NO side electrodes projecting). These things worked great-they
>didn't improve mileage or cut misfires or anything like that (they were
>advertised as solving just about everything!), what they DID do was last 3
>to 5 times longer then a regular plug and solved pinging problems on
>engines that tended to have that problem (most Rotes 4 cylinder!). I used
>them in most of my Rootes cars during the sixties and early seventies and
>then they disappeared from the market. So I would guess that a split fire
>plug would last longer then a regular plug. I would also guess that a
>platinum tip plug might not last longer in an old engine because the old
>engines burn much dirtier then new ones and leave all sorts of crap on the
>plugs.
>
>Jan
>
>
>Jay_Laifman@countrywide.com wrote:
> > Bill writes:
> >My question is what spark
> >plug gap can I run on my split fire spark plugs.
>
>I don't know if you've noticed on the Tiger group, but there was a thread
>just the other day with multiple people telling a Tiger owner with problems
>to immediately ditch the splitfires. "Snake oil", "marketing gimmick" and
>"garbage" were the most common words used. I'd suggest going back to the
>standard N9YC's and starting from there.
>
>As long as we are also on the subject, I've also been told that the
>platinum plugs are no good for our age cars. I've seen proof of it too.
>
>I do have a set of N7YC's that I was going to try, but I've found the temp
>range of the N9's just fine.
>
>Jay
>
>
>
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