I get what you're saying, but the majority if the force to remove them isnt from the rubber, its from the metal clip.
If I pull the plugs out of the head and put the boot on them, its just as hard to put them on or pull them off even if I let air into the boot or hold the rubber off the ceramic.
Will it help some? Yes I'm sure putting the grease on the rubber would help some, but would it solve the problem? I'm confident that it would not.
Its also a classic issue... for example there are these performance tests that many customers test to in my industry, and the tests are not at all a good representation of actual usage. So designing things to meet the test, from an engineering standpoint, seems useless. At the same time, if we dont design to the test, and our competitors do, we wont sell our product. So even if dielectric grease was part of the design, the fact that most people dont use it means its a bad idea to design your product to need it, because even in an engineering world, the customer is always right, especially in markets of mass sale. If this was aerospace and there were only 3 customers all of whom had great training on how to use something, sure, you can get away with that. I dont believe this is one of those markets.
Now, will I go try some grease just to get good data on if it makes a huge difference and if it does likely report back? Yes, that's likely what I'll do, but I'll also add that your attitude about it makes me want to NOT try it rather than try it.
I'm also not going to spend 80 bucks on spark plugs and 250 bucks on coils when they are working currently just because I "could" run a bigger gap and they "might" be damaged with no visible damage. I could also have them xray'ed to see whats going on inside, but again, they are working, so its not worth it.
Next time I replace my spark plugs I might try putting some grease on gaping them larger, but I'm sure as heck not replacing all my coils, the ROI simply isnt worth it.
V8bait, one of the guys who helped design the coils originally, has a VERY valid point that given that the coils have about 4 times the energy output, that doesnt translate into a bigger gap in large numbers because the energy needed to bridge said gap goes up exponentially with gap distance. So a gap of 0.022 to a gap of 0.030 doesnt need just double the power, that's a 36% increase in gap, this needs an increase in voltage from (in normal air, more is actually needed in cyl) 3200v to 4200v, the resistance has likely gone up by 1/3, power is (V^2)/R, so you only increased R by *1.3, and yet increased the squared value by 1000.... the math is plain (though very over simplified here because once you reach breakdown voltage and ionize what you're conducting through things get much more complicated). Combine that with the fact that the distance to the head from the ceramic is MUCH larger than the arc gap, and that the increase in resistance to arc due to fuel/pressure compared to plain air is likely not enough to overcome to huge change in gap, combined with rubber in the way and ceramic in the way, both excellent insulators (better than air), and as a BSEE I'd be willing to lay money down that if an arc to the head through the ceramic is happening, its happening because something else went very wrong, not just too large of a spark gap. Further, while dielectric grease is an excellent insulator, so is rubber, and putting a maybe 1mm thick layer of grease between the ceramic and rubber isnt going to significantly increase the resistance to flow with 1/4 inch or more of rubber already in the way.
So like I said, I'm willing to try it, but I'm not convinced it will solve the problem until I have proof, and no amount of internet typing will help or change that (in both cases of ease of removal (which I'm more likely to believe) and change in gap).
If I pull the plugs out of the head and put the boot on them, its just as hard to put them on or pull them off even if I let air into the boot or hold the rubber off the ceramic.
Will it help some? Yes I'm sure putting the grease on the rubber would help some, but would it solve the problem? I'm confident that it would not.
Its also a classic issue... for example there are these performance tests that many customers test to in my industry, and the tests are not at all a good representation of actual usage. So designing things to meet the test, from an engineering standpoint, seems useless. At the same time, if we dont design to the test, and our competitors do, we wont sell our product. So even if dielectric grease was part of the design, the fact that most people dont use it means its a bad idea to design your product to need it, because even in an engineering world, the customer is always right, especially in markets of mass sale. If this was aerospace and there were only 3 customers all of whom had great training on how to use something, sure, you can get away with that. I dont believe this is one of those markets.
Now, will I go try some grease just to get good data on if it makes a huge difference and if it does likely report back? Yes, that's likely what I'll do, but I'll also add that your attitude about it makes me want to NOT try it rather than try it.
I'm also not going to spend 80 bucks on spark plugs and 250 bucks on coils when they are working currently just because I "could" run a bigger gap and they "might" be damaged with no visible damage. I could also have them xray'ed to see whats going on inside, but again, they are working, so its not worth it.
Next time I replace my spark plugs I might try putting some grease on gaping them larger, but I'm sure as heck not replacing all my coils, the ROI simply isnt worth it.
V8bait, one of the guys who helped design the coils originally, has a VERY valid point that given that the coils have about 4 times the energy output, that doesnt translate into a bigger gap in large numbers because the energy needed to bridge said gap goes up exponentially with gap distance. So a gap of 0.022 to a gap of 0.030 doesnt need just double the power, that's a 36% increase in gap, this needs an increase in voltage from (in normal air, more is actually needed in cyl) 3200v to 4200v, the resistance has likely gone up by 1/3, power is (V^2)/R, so you only increased R by *1.3, and yet increased the squared value by 1000.... the math is plain (though very over simplified here because once you reach breakdown voltage and ionize what you're conducting through things get much more complicated). Combine that with the fact that the distance to the head from the ceramic is MUCH larger than the arc gap, and that the increase in resistance to arc due to fuel/pressure compared to plain air is likely not enough to overcome to huge change in gap, combined with rubber in the way and ceramic in the way, both excellent insulators (better than air), and as a BSEE I'd be willing to lay money down that if an arc to the head through the ceramic is happening, its happening because something else went very wrong, not just too large of a spark gap. Further, while dielectric grease is an excellent insulator, so is rubber, and putting a maybe 1mm thick layer of grease between the ceramic and rubber isnt going to significantly increase the resistance to flow with 1/4 inch or more of rubber already in the way.
So like I said, I'm willing to try it, but I'm not convinced it will solve the problem until I have proof, and no amount of internet typing will help or change that (in both cases of ease of removal (which I'm more likely to believe) and change in gap).
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