Interesting mix of facts, pseudo-science, and speculation...
You're bang on about the manufacturers. The environment is getting enough
airtime right now, that if a spark plug company suddenly came up and said
"use our plugs and you'll save the environment", they'd recoup their
investment within a year.
Making a big spherical electrode has the effect of drastically increasing
the firing voltage of the plug, because it takes far higher potential to
cause the air to break down when there are no sharp edges in the electrodes.
The effect of firing the plug like this might be similar to what a Van de
Graaf generator creates - sparks leaving the sphere simultaneously from many
directions. I could see this giving more effective combustion, but 24:1
air-fuel ratio is very lean... I'm sure exhaust temperatures are going way
down because half of the air in the cylinder isn't taking part in the
combustion process.
I don't know if the part about him working with Smokey Yunick is good or
bad... Smokey certainly had a few creative ideas during his career, but the
ones that were not executed on the race track didn't make much of a
commercial splash.
Theo
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