1992 Acura Integra

We test late-model low-mileage cars most of the time. You can tell from our test results so far that 2000 was the earliest car we've tested. I do get asked how the plugs will work on an older engine so here it is, a car that has 107,987 miles on the odometer going though the ringer.

With new stock plugs installed we got 144 horsepower at 6100 rpm and 138 Ft-Lb of torque at 5000 rpm. Acceleration from 40 tp 80mph took 14.35 seconds over a distance of .24 miles and the engine ate 1039.47 cc of fuel on the fuel economy trace.

BE-1 Pulstar plugs set to a .044" gap and installed to a hot engine brought power up to 151 horsepower at 6100 rpm and 143 Ft-Lb of torque at 5000 rpm. Acceleration dropped to 13.51 seconds over .23 miles and fuel consumption also dropped to 978.15 cc.

So how did an engine that has almost 108k miles of wear on it fair? We gained 7 HP(4.86%), 5 Ft-Lb(3.62%), decreased acceleration time by .84 seconds(5.85%) and increased fuel economy by 5.9%. Not bad, not bad at all.

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2004 Acura RSX Type-S

The Acura RSX Type-S is a very popular car in the United States, especially in the tuner market. Economic, fun and small this car has its place both on the streets, and on this day, in our lab for testing.

With new NGK Iridium factory spec plugs installed we begin testing. The engine pulled 223 horsepower at 7700 rpm and 165 Ft-Lb of torque 6200 rpm. Stock acceleration from 40 mph to 80 mph took 7.21 seconds over .12 miles and fuel consumption was 913.42 cc.

New Pulstar BE-1 plugs gapped to the factory gap of .044" the engine power output went up to 231 horsepower at 7800 rpm and 167 Ft-Lb at 6200 rpm. Acceleration with Pulstar plugs installed dropped to 6.9 seconds over the same .12 miles and fuel consumption dropped to 882.76 cc.

Comparing the results gave us 8 more peak HP(3.59%), 2 more pounds of peak torque(1.21%), a reduction in acceleration time of .31 seconds(4.3%) and an increase in fuel economy by 3.36%.

If you analyze the results above you'll notice something, while we made 2 more pounds of torque at the peak there are other parts of the engine power band where we improved torque quite a bit more than that in all other areas. The average torque with stock plugs was 153 Ft-Lb but with the Pulstar plugs that number went up to 159 Ft-Lb, a 6 pound difference(3.92%). That number is significant considering the engine spends only a fraction of its time at peak torque and since peak torque is so high in the power band on this engine you probably don't even get there except on your way past it to the redline.

2000 Acura 3.5RL

While this car had already been tested, it was tested using our old procedures that weren't as, shall we say, reliable as they could have been. So with the new testing in place and done many times over we came back and ran this car through the ringer again.

With a new set of NGK Iridium plugs installed at a .044" gap we attained 184 HP at 5100 rpm and 202 Ft-Lb at 4350 rpm. The car went from 30-65 mph in 7.84 seconds over a distance of 0.11 miles and completed our USO6 drivers trace using 1657.254 cc of fuel.

The Pulstar plugs were swapped in and gapped to .044" as per Honda's specs into the already hot 3.2L v6 and it pulled 192 HP at 5130 rpm and 211 Ft-Lb at 4350 rpm. The acceleration test yielded a 30-65 mph time of 7.22 seconds over 0.10 miles and consumed 1469.877 cc in the fuel economy trace.

The results of this testing give us 8 more horsepower (4.3%), 9 more pounds of torque (4.5%), a decrease in passing acceleration time of 0.62 seconds (7.9% quicker) and 187.377 cc less fuel consuption (11.3% better fuel economy).

If you look at the dyno chart you can see why this increase in fuel economy is so significant. We don't just increase the amount of power at the top-end, it happens throughout the power band. You can see that the 9 extra pounds of torque holds true from about 2900 rpm to around 4850 rpm, and because of this, when you are cruising on the freeway turning 3000 rpm or accelerating in town at 3000-4000 rpm you are right where the Pulstar plugs give you a great gain, this means you use less throttle to keep the same speed or acceleration curve as before and hence, save fuel.

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