Ed, As others have said there's no performance advantage to the resistor plugs. All the resistor does is knock the square edge off the voltage going to the plug. A square wave (or, more accurately, a spike-square wave) contains all sorts of high frequency energy. In the old days that didn't matter, but as electronics became more prevalent in the cars there was a need to reduce the interference caused by the high frequency energy (my father said it was a common way to "fix" AM radio reception, to give an indicator of the early real need for the plugs). In our cars the data acquisition systems are not happy with stray high-frequency energy, so the plugs will help them out.
In Electrical Engineering terms, the spark plug is nothing more than a high value air-gap capacitor that's pushed past avalanche point. If you look at the coil output on the oscilloscope, you'll see an initial spike as the voltage builds across the capacitor, and then a drop to a plateau as the spark jumps & ionizes the air in the gap. The resistor in line with the capacitor creates a simple RC circuit. The rise time is a function of the resistance & the capacitance. Increase the resistance & you'll increase the rise time.... -Ted -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of edward capullo Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2007 7:46 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [F500] resistor plugs I am curious to see if anyone has a strong opinion one way or another about running resistor plugs with our engines. I have run B9EG and BR9EG and do not seem to notice much difference. Does running one or another have any real advantage or issues? Ed Capullo ________________________________ FormulaCar Magazine - A Proud Supporter of Formula 500 The Official Publication of Junior Formula Car Racing Subscribe Today! www.formulacarmag.com or 519-624-2003 _________________________________ _______________________________________________ F500 mailing list - [email protected] To unsubscribe or change options please visit: http://f500.org/mailman/listinfo/f500 *** Please, DO NOT send unsubscribe requests to the mailing list! ***
