So what is the main difference in any of them and are they worth the money? Running 20 lbs+ boost or nitrous...

 

i hear good things about plasma booster, not sure if there is much difference except for brand, i think they all do pretty much the same thing. kinda like accel and msd and mallory ignitions

 

I heard the Plasma Booster is pretty good. I think the Direct Hits has had some troubles and is not working out so good. I was told that REM has a L in the shop right now with major problems after the Direct hits install and after chopping the factory coil boots to install the direct hits, they have to get all new coils to put it back to stock.

I am sure they will chime in here with any actual info as my info is second hand and should not be trusted.

Boost-a-spark? I'll have to look into that one.

 

I spoke to TZRider from REM about the Direct HTS and the problem was, It works too well and uses all the available fuel. He told me that they had to do some more dyno testing when he had more time to get things to work right.

 

Thats kinda what I was told as well, with the exception that Direct Hits themselves told them that they would have to redesign the Direct hits for the Lightning application and that they should put the truck back to stock, and that no matter what REM did to the chip program, they couldnt get it rich enough=way too lean.

I dont think I would want to cut up my coil boots to install anything that I might have to take off in the future.

Also, my understanding is that the Direct hits is basically a resistor and a capacitor that stores energy for spark and is not controlled by any main unit, that bothers me alot.

There have already been very good results and writeups on the Plasma booster and I think Lightninrod has done a dyno test, so the PB has already proven itself and the Direct hits needs lots of work. JMO

 

Increased spark energy uses more fuel? I don't understand this...

 

I don't understand it either. I think this is what happens when people talk about stuff that they have no real knowledge of.

This is very simple. Air goes in engine and is measured by MAF. Computer calculates air going to each cylinder and then amount of fuel necessary for that air amount. Then it injects that amount of fuel. The A/F has now been set. The pure definition of A/F is mass of air over mass of fuel. Spark energy doesn't come anywhere in there. In fact, the A/F is whatever its going to be even if it doesn't spark!

If for some reasone these ignition systems are able to dump a bunch more energy into the spark, it might be necessary to retartd the timing a little since the flame kernal might grow faster at the inception of the burn. Other than that, it makes no difference.

Of course if it sucked (which it might) and it was misfiring, the measurement equipment might show oxygen in the exhaust and lead you to believe it was lean. This is where a four-gas analyzer comes in. In addition to the high O2, there would be high HC and CO so you could detect the misfire.

 

Heat and pressure are two sides of the same coin. The hotter the spark the higher the cylinder pressure will be. More horsepower.

The plasmsa booster looks like a good product. I don't like the way it splices with those cheesey wire clamps though, and is there anyway to mount it out of sight? It just doesn't look like it installs cleanly.

 

You work at SWRI, don't you?

 

Yes, I work at SWRI.

Heat and pressure go together but are not related to spark. Spark energy is in the neighborhood of 10's of millijoules. Fuel energy is 40 Megajoules per kilogram. If you have 50 milligrams of fuel in the cylinder then you have about 2 kilojoules of energy released. The difference of a little bit of spark energy is neglibable. The only time it makes a difference is when you don't have enough energy to actually ignite the mixture. Sometimes it also makes a difference when your tune isn't on the edge because more spark energy my decrease the 0-10% burn duration and effectively "advance" your timing. Of course if the tune is on the edge, it will tend towards knock.