Why do some motorists drill spark plugs?

Every motorist wants his car to run better. Drivers buy special spare parts, make tuning, pour additives into fuel. All these manipulations serve to improve the performance of the car. One of the latest and trending innovations in terms of tuning is spark plug drilling. What it is, and whether this technology works in principle, we will consider in our article.

Why some drivers think it's necessary to drill spark plugs

There is an opinion that the mechanics of racing teams acted in this way. They made a small hole on the top of the electrode. According to the subjective assessments of the pilots and the performance of the engine, the power of the car increased slightly. There was also a more accurate detonation of the fuel, which "added" a few horses.

Domestic drivers found another reinforcement of this theory in the technology of pre-chamber candles. But this is rather not even the type of candles as such, but the structure of the engine. In pre-chamber candles, the initial ignition of the fuel mixture occurs not inside the main cylinder, but in a small chamber in which the candle is located. It turns out the effect of a jet nozzle. Fuel detonates in a small chamber, and a stream of pressurized flame bursts through a narrow opening into the main cylinder. Thus, the motor power increases, and the consumption drops by an average of 10%.

Taking these two theses as a basis, drivers began to massively make holes in the upper part of the candle electrodes. Someone referred to racers, someone said that such tuning makes a prechamber out of an ordinary candle. But in practice, both were mistaken. Well, what really happens with the changed candles?

Does this procedure really improve combustion efficiency?

To understand this issue, you need to understand the combustion cycle of fuel in an internal combustion engine.

So, the detonation of the fuel mixture occurs under a certain pressure inside each combustion chamber. This requires the appearance of a spark. It is she who is carved out of the candle under the influence of an electric current.

If you look at the candle from the side, it becomes clear that a spark is formed between two electrodes and flies away from it at a certain angle. According to the assurances of some car mechanics and mechanics, the hole in the upper part of the electrode, as it were, concentrates and increases the strength of the spark. It turns out almost a sheaf of sparks passing through a round hole. By the way, motorists operate with this argument when they compare ordinary candles with prechamber ones.

But what happens in practice. Indeed, many note a certain increase in engine power and throttle response of the car on the road. Some even say that fuel consumption is falling. Usually this effect disappears after 200 - 1000 km of run. But what does such drilling really give, and why do engine characteristics return to their previous indicators over time?

Most often, this is associated not with the manufacture of a hole in the candle using the riders' secret technology, but with its cleaning. Perhaps a hole in the electrode gives some small increase in engine power. Maybe the mechanics of the past did this to slightly improve the performance of racing cars. But this effect is very short-term and insignificant. And like any intervention in a stable working mechanism, this technology has its drawbacks.

Why is the technology not being implemented by manufacturers?

So why is this technology not useful, and even harmful. And what prevents car factories from using it on an ongoing basis:

1. A car engine is a complex engineering unit that is designed for certain loads and performance characteristics. You can’t just take it and completely modify one of its nodes. Therefore, a little higher we talked about the prechamber engine as such, and not about a separate candle taken in isolation from the internal combustion engine.

2. The use of new types of candles would require accurate calculations and measurements for all types of internal combustion engines. The principle of unification of candles, in this case, would not make sense.

3. Changing the structure of the upper part of the electrode can cause it to quickly burn out, and its fragments will fall into the engine. This is fraught with partial or major repairs of the motor.

4. The technology itself assumes that the direction of the spark will be changed, which brings us to the second point.

To put it simply, it is unprofitable for the manufacturer to produce such products. First, it is potentially dangerous. Secondly, its implementation will require changing or recalculating the loads on the internal components of the engine. Finally, in practice, this measure gives a very short-term power gain effect. This "game" is not worth the candle.

By the way, auto mechanics from the middle of the last century could use this technology precisely because of its short-term effect. That is, during the race, it gave a real increase in engine power. Well, after the end of the competition, the engine of the car would have been subjected to thorough MOT in any case. Therefore, no one thought about the introduction of this method on an ongoing basis, especially in civilian transport.