I run b9egv's will they work good for alky

That is THE plug IMHO for alcohol

BR9EIX. I run them. I am not recomending them to anyone else. They are hi dollar and I'm wasting my money, I'll say it before someone else does

I found the es plugs will burn the strap off if you go lean. The wire tip plugs keep on running while your pistons melt :pope:

Yes sir...JT said the same thing happened to him.

Brad...you running stock coil and CDI?

Last winter ice racing I burned the straps off a set of es plugs. Fattened it up a bit, put another set of es plugs in and burned them again. Gave it all the fuel I could but the only other plugs I had were egv's. This time the plugs came back coated with aluminum and no compression
Also had another motor run the bowls dry ice racing and it burned the straps off with no damage to the pistons (es plugs)
Now I only run the cheap ones

Doug...do you actually flatten the electrode so it's flat (parallel to the firing tip)??

pvl

No I just bend them over to .018 gap and run it. Only on my seacond set of plugs this summer. Only changed them chasing a gremlin and the plugse werent it. And banshee 332 I do have a pvl

Well...both Doug and JT said the same thing, a plug other than ES cost them a piston.
I can tell you first hand my first trip out to SL this year, (before I realized...or measured, I had 16cc domes) I smoked an Oring twice and a ground strap once. I'm sold...

I just had to change to B9ES because my hotwires call for non-resistor plugs...

I used to run the b9egvs and I ended up burning a hole in two pistons!! When I pulled the plugs they where still good to go.

I then switched over to the b9es plugs, and I have not lost a piston yet!! Only burnt one strap off when I got alittle greedy and tried leaning on it!!

I melted two piston last year with b9egv plugs.

Damn, I'm throwing my egvs away, unless somebody wants them. I, too have seen a strap burn off a br9es, and I thought it was pure luck, because we hadn't put the egv's in yet...

you gus need to learn how to tune.. i have been runnign br8eix at .018 gap in my 535 for 3 years. had no problems at all.. but i dont get greedy,. if your motor is just not enough its not enough. if you go lean you will either blow a motor up and or burn up a plug.. thats simple...

The plug strap I was referring to wasn't mine...the guys motor leaned out b/c the powerjet vibrated itself closed on some used carbs he just purchased..

I too have heard that - and I disagree with it completely.

First off the ground strap is much more prone to the heat of the combustion chamber than the center electrode is ... & (is not made of the same high temp resistant metal as the center) .

The material the fine tips are made of (iridium & such) can withstand short bursts in excess of 4000* ...

... now which is going to melt first ?

If there are people out there melting the center elctgrode BEFORE the ground strap ... you have big issues.

imo

...someone school me if i`m way off base, please.



Good example ...the plug lived through the lean condition, rather than burning off the ground strap quickly.

Another thing to note is the "base ring" is much wider than the es rings, so they will absorb more cylinder temp & live through the worst lean conditions ... resulting in more damage.

In a proper tune-up, I think they have their place though.

After reading this I went to look at both a wire tip and a es plug. I
m not sure what you mean by base ring? And thanks for a constructive post

the cross-sectional width of the end casing of the plug where the last few threads are removed ... unless I`m thinking of the fine wire denso`s ...

Your right it is thicker

Just burned a piston up on a b9egv last week when a bowl ran dry. I used them cause of the "protection" factor but it smoked the piston on mine and had to get the cub cyl recoated.Plug was fine. Gotta get some billet bowls.

I agree... too lean is too lean , and alot of people are looking at the problem backwards no plug is going to be worth a damn if your bike is lean and detonating to the point its melting pistons..i would think youd want a good sparking and foul resisting plug other than b8es ..and
have ability to burn off a castor premix and id run more oil to fuel ratio to ward off trouble ..my 2 penny's

To say you guys need to learn how to tune is just plain insulting. Theres a lot of circumstances that can lead to a burnt piston and to claim everybody who does burn a piston is a poor tuner is just a ignorant statement. Of course we all know that to lean is to lean and it's just that simple. And nobody is saying that using a specific plug will ward off excessive engine damage when a error occurs. It's really NOT that simple

Agreed Doug, I took the comment the same way ... sigh

I agree.I would think that in my mind I can tune as well as the next guy(hopefully better in my mind lol) and I still have burned a few down lol (just a few)

Things like running a bowl dry or a float not functioning right, or a venting problem will get them. doesnt matter what plug. Things have a tendency to kick you from behind.

That being said, If I burn one down and repair it, I am not going to (just change plugs) to fix the problem. I am going to find what really happend and correct it.

I put up a tread a few months ago in the 'tips and tricks' area. This is the opposite of what people where talking about. They where saying that the fine wire plug would burn the wire before engine damage.

FINALLY!!...somebody that read the same thread as me...i knew my memory wasn' that bad yet... ...SO NOW: WHICH IS IT? .... seems like we got some CONTROVERSY HERE...come on all you builders us "amateurs" need to know the answer to this "burning" question (pun intended)...dbr

mine definately burned the piston before the fine wire (B9EGV) burned off. Ran a bowl dry.

The numerous reply`s throughout this post has answered the "debate" ... i would say ?

I think forcefed nailed it, the thicker cross section is able to dissipate the heat more so than an es plug. and show less damage to the plug. But make no mistake, it is NOT THE PLUGS FAULT for the engine damage. And if you do melt plug straps, where do you think that material is going. dropping 2000+ degree molten steel into the cylinder cant be good .

If a plug does burn and you put the same plug back in it and it burns then you put some eg or egv's in it and it burns the piston through, I would bet the dome of the piston was allready thin(cratered) in the middle.

whether I run eg or egv or iridium plugs, it is because I want to run a hot spark without loosing the integrity of the wire, and control the chaotic nature of combustion, rather than thinking the plug is safer than another. It also takes more voltage for a thicker center to produce a spark

that right there is priceless information.Once again the good people on this website post some unbelievably great info.Thanks!!!

You guys are welcome. I also like to read these posts and gain info.

Here is the previous page of that clip from NGK. over the years I to have (heard) about the safety margin, but I didnt find any thing about a safety margin on engine damage in any of ngk's literature.

... thanks tim ...

I always knew they ran a little better and fouled less especially on a bike that gets lugged around like a kids or wifes bike. I agree good info. I still like the splitfires too. Had a generator that would start first pull with them and none other.

i tell you guys what ! i been running egvs for about 3 years now and i have never melted a piston running them ! i have however melted pistons with the es plug . i run my [censored] as lean as i can ! i know ive burnt 5 or 6 sets up in one day ! i seen jimmy go hru 10 sets in one day ! im not saying egvs are better than es plugs , im just saying ive had better success with them ! my .02 andy

Andy's bikes as well as Jims are on alky and mine was on gas. Maybe theres where the difference lies. Wiseco pistons in mine. Mine was running a float bowl dry at high rpms and could have been the lack of ois/gas,mix at high rpms where theirs probably was having just slightly less fuel/air ratio and burnin. Some also keep turning up the timing till it burns a plug off. No controversy. Just happened differently? Andy's tellin the truth. It happened I'm sure.

ok what about plug gap...ive had some tell me 18* and then some say set them at 24* which is it..i was told that a bigger gap that the alky would blow the spark out..

I gap mine down to 16 because of the alky killing the fire at high engine revs.

Keep in mind, the higher the compression, the more of a chance of blowing the flame out....

I melted a strap down (EGV) today trying to tune my bike at Glamis. Scared the crap out of out of me... I am new at this alky jetting, I'm used to 110.

Im not sure I did any damage to the motor, it sounds like this is a (somewhat) common thing. Which leads me to 2 questions....

1) What would you do to check the damage, if at all? (Bike still runs and sounds strong.)

2) Can someone post a picture of how a alky plug is supposed to look when it is jetted properly?

Thanks

They both have good info in them

Thanks! I have been looking for that thread for a few days. I knew I saw it on PS.

TTT

Here is some more info on Plug reading

Up Again

Its back

ttt

UP

I know its a little late but here we go,

I do 3 things to check it, first check the compression, second and third I remove the intakes and then the exhaust and look at the pistons you will be able to see the top of the piston through the ex port. usually the first damage will be at the timing edge of the piston at the exhaust opening


here is another pic(left plug is one weekend of racing right plug is new)

^^^^

heres a pic of my plug. does it look like the bike is running rich. its got about 10 runs on it max with 2 purges. if the pic is hard to see. the plug is a lite tan color.

another pic

its rich ...you kinda want a tan porcelin and like in the pic of titans plugs you want the outer ring to show it is building alittle heat going out the backside [metal colored] then the darker color behind the bend of the strap which is away from the heat...look at titans plug and note how the outer ring goes from metal color too the darker color and that shows it making power or building heat out the backside of your pass ...hope this helps ...once you get too lean the whole outer edge will be metal colored just for reference which gets on the edge of being too lean of a tune which makes power but gets dangerous and close too detonation...at this point you will see grey specs on the porcelin....


btw....alky plugs are harder too read exspecially from pics !

If your Purging on the same plugs your trying to get a reading on, it's not going to happen.
Make your Pass, kill the Motor at the end of the pass get your reading there, and take a pic b 4 returning to the Pits. Don't purge on the same plug your tunning on as it defeats the purpose of trying to get a accurate reading. And then your will need to do a plug chop to actually get a good reading or buy the correct tool to read the bottom of the Porcelen by the threads. It's hard to tell what kind of reading your getting if I read your Post correctly, that your purging on the same plug your making a pass with.
If I missread the post sorry.

Here you go.

http://www.pro-system.com/sparktool.html

You read right parts. I did purge on these. Got some new plugs yesterday these will be my new purge plugs. Still trying to learn how to tune with plugs.

I have actually read that people purge there motors once or twice during a race. They say its be/c the purge fuel in the bowls will build heat faster on the run and before the end of the run the purge fuel is out of the system and is running on alky.

You have to keep in mind that your putting in approx 1.5 times as mush Gas as it can actually burn, so with that thought in mine it has a tend to foul the plug more than give it a hot burn.
When I purge I generally run the motor till I get most of the Purge Gas out of the Carb Bowls. Once it starts to run out of Gas I kill it.
Then when I put the Alky Plugs back in it I am starting back with fresh alky plugs.