Grassroots Motorsports did a dyno study on this some years ago. I think the
power gains they were able to achieve by increasing the plug gap was on the
order of 5-10 horsepower. To small to be detected by the average butt dyno
(seat of the pants), but it would lower track times.
This does not come free though. It heats up the coil, leading to breakdown.
It also increases the chances of burning through the plug wires and such. Take
it too far, and you start failing to spark across the plug gap consistently,
losing power and getting a roughened idle.
As a sidebar on the subject, platinum plugs take less voltage to arc over due
to the electro-chemistry of platinum and their center electrode shape. This is
good and bad. On the bad side, this means they are more prone to arc over
before the coil is fully saturated, resulting in a weak spark. On the good
side, it makes them dandy for enlarging the spark by increasing the gap.
As a second sidebar, GRMS also did a dyno study playing with various sparkplugs
when they did a tune-up on a slightly tired Neon. Best performing plug? The
old NGK's that were in there.
>>> "alemen@pop.ftconnect.com" <alemen@pop.ftconnect.com> 06/30 2:05 PM >>>
Folks I have a new coil ready to fit (40kv) and I have seen some references to
opening the plug gap to take advantage of the higher voltage, so that it does
not jump at the old voltage. I higher voltage can jump a bigger gap, that makes
sense, but is there a trade of to the energy at the smaller gap?
Does anyone have the info or perhaps a link to an article on this?
TIA
Alan
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