Astro-Jet Pulse Amplifier Scam?

You can only get a bigger spark by using more energy. That energy still has to come from the same coil you already have. I see a likelihood that this device may simply burn out your exisitng coil in long term use.

Graham

Perhaps it's just best to buy new (dealership) spark plug wires and a new ignition coil if your car is over 100,000 miles... that reminds me... I should do the same... ;)

And, of course, changing your spark plugs regularly. You do that, right?

was the exposed plug operating under compression?

he did this on a dynomometer, or with the transmission in neutral?

they really seem like ambiguous results to me.

if the device is an inductor as I suspect it is installing it will slightly retard the spark timing, so If he tweaked the timing for fastest running with the device attached removing it would slow the engine....

smoke and mirrors all the way.

Bye. Jasen

When I was a kid I saw this very same gizmo being demoed and sold at the world's fair in NYC (1962?) using the same type of car setup. I was amazed, but my dad (a physics teacher and pretty good car mechanic) explained the deal pretty much as you have. It appeared to be an extra coil installed on top of the regular coil. It was also "transistorized" (high tech back then) because it had transistor glued inside, but apparently not electrically connected to anything.

His magical "Astro-Jet Pulse Amplifier" is a spark gap. What happens is, it's in series with the spark gap in the plug, so the inductive kickback voltage on the coil has to go higher to start the spark, consequently there's more stored energy. They've been doing this since the 1940's, but I seriously doubt if it really improves mileage or they'd be standard by now. They probably eat into the lifetime of your plugs, coil, distributor, etc; and as someone else said, was the demo plug under compression, and was the engine on a dyno, or in neutral?

Thanks, RIch

Stored energy is 1/2 LI^2, and I = ET/L, so if the breaker points stay closed for T time, the stored energy will J joules. This will be the same regardless of spark gap. You can't get more energy out then you put in. I asked the guy how he was getting more energy out for the same energy going in, and he stated that the voltage was higher at reduced current. Problem with that analogy, is the spark voltage is determined by the gap and compression. To get a higher voltage, all you have to do is widen the gap. But if you add a second gap in series to increase the total from the coil, you lose energy in the unused gap.

So, it remains a mystery what it does if anything. The demo plug was exposed with no compression, and the car was just running in idle mode, no load.

-Bill

The main reason for the increase in fuel consumption at increased speed is air resistance. From your description, it doesn't sound like the demo would take this into account.