Spitfire Multispark (from old site)

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contributed by Ian Simpson

It works. Mostly.

Yeah the gadget sure does have some good effects.

I took a chance on the spitfire device at Trax 2002 as the chap said he refund me if it didn't work. So nothing lost in having a play. I was waiting until I'd finished testing it before I said anything publicly on this site.

On the way back our convoy of 5's progressed at a spirited rate down A roads for about ½ hour and stopped for others to get petrol. I didn't need any so took the opportunity to remove my Magnecor KV8 king lead and fit the Spitfire and the cheap carbon lead he'd supplied with it.

Well, as I drove out of the station I could tell a change had occurred. Note, I know the 5GTT changes all the time but I'd owned one for 10½ years by then I have a fair idea how it varies. I had to consider that it may just be that the weather had changed, as it had just rained then become sunny, or the engine had cooled. But there was no mistaking the improvement on the open road. The peak torque seemed to have increased and the car pulled harder on the approach to, and through, where I estimate peak torque to be, the area where the car seat shoves you in the back. We drove for another ½ hour on some great A roads and the car pulled out of the corners like the wind was behind it. It was smooth, and good. I grinned much of the way to the M25. I was pleased with my investment.

Until the next day or two. When the car had become **** around town, spluttering and stalling constantly. I swapped back to the Magnecor and the problem went away. All was fine again.

So I lent the lead and device to Perry for a few weeks. He said, phoning me after driving home 10 miles, he felt his standard (and like it just rolled out of the showroom condition, 33k miles GTT) had more torque. He experience no probs around town.

So I lent it to Marco for a few weeks. He had a mildly uprated 5GTT. He liked the device a lot. He was reluctant to give it back, even though he had the same problems around town, as he mainly did longer distances. He said he car was 'so slow' without it.

So the Spitfire man kindly gave me a new and better ignition lead to try. Alas, they made it wrong with the device at the ECU end. But I tried it this way and it seemed to have sorted it as it was fine around town. I only had to drive a few hundred metres to tell there was a change for the better. And slightly further to confirm it.

I've found that there is a lot of EM radiated from the device, I guess, due to it's complete lack of suppression. Maybe this is why they specify not using it near the ECU.

I lent it to Mike48 for a few miles and he liked it a lot too. Idle in his car was steadier and the acceleration 'off boost' was better. It helped the car be nicer to drive.

I eventually re-made the lead so the gadget was at the disty end. And I pleased to find that the car seems to be OK. But I'm not 100% sure though. The plugs do tend to soot up at idle but that may be due to the NGK B9 EG plugs I currently have. I plan to put some better ones in shortly. Even so, it's not anywhere near as bad as the problem before.

The conclusion.

It's not the same as another 10psi of boost, obviously, and for peeps who only want that and find even that a hard to tell difference I'd say don't bother. But for those that drive their 5 a lot and are fussy about small changes then I think this may be a good one.

What people who have one say:

You've seen the spiel.... turns one spark into 5 at the spark plug, promoting a cleaner burn....
well, *someone* cut one open and had a look at what it looks like inside.....

2 screws (crosshead)
2 steel washers.
2 aluminium washers.
2 plastic cups.
+ a small amount of epoxy to glue the 2 cups together

The arrangement in the unit means that the two steel washers are held to the plastic by the two screws. In between the gap are the two aluminium washers.

How does that work then?
That's a good question.

The man that sells 'em doesn't seem to quite know. He's done quite a few tests though with clear results as well as those shown on his demonstration rig. He says "the "spark pulse spirals around the outside of the discs, braking it down into 5 pulses instead of 1. After the initial spark at the plug the Air/fuel mix is ignited, as the piston is on it's downward travel the rest of the pulses catch up and ignite the remainder of un-burnt air/fuel mix so it further increases the combustion....."

From what I can tell by looking through the clear disty cap, there is sparking only for about 30° if that. As the advance might at times be as much as that, then the sparking has stopped before the piston has reached TDC and started going downward. I guess the spark time period is about the same length so the angle of piston travel during sparking will be greater at higher RPM.

I wonder if the energy flow is interrupted by the gadget resulting in voltage dropping after ionisation just enough to end it early. But there is still plenty of voltage and current coming from the ECU coil so it rises after the device and another ionisation occurs, with the same result, and so on until the coil is discharged.

Ian, do you think the results could be bettered/improved with a higher o/p coil in place?
Probably not. The voltage is determined by the pd across the plug gap to cause ionisation. The current is determined by the resistances or impedances in the system as a whole.

That's why I wanted the 6 coil king lead, shortened by about 12" from the standard for the phase two. Also non-resistive plugs.

Also maybe the peak voltage is affected by the resistance between the +12V terminal on the ECU and the battery. I measure a bit of a resistance on mine. It's a long and winding road between the two.

I would like to try the Nology leads, but not for £150 or whatever nonsense they want for 'em. I considered making my own but is a bit tricky with up to 30KV trying to earth anywhere. But that's another story....

Back to the Spitfire, I was a bit concerned that the effect seemed to be a weakening of the spark, so clearly demonstrated by the man and his machine at the shows where the normal setup burns charred holes the ticket tape and the Multispark setup does not. It's the antithesis of the Nology method of one huge short spark. But my testing at 15psi seems to show no downside at peak engine loadings. Maybe it's different at 12,000rpm. But that won't bother us. However at 2 bar there may be something to be gained perhaps from a better ECU and/or coil. Don't know at present.

6FOOT6
I thought it worked well on the 5, it made the idle much better straight away, and it was a little more economical. I've got mine on the 11 Tub now and it's going like stink and its running big boost as well and no problems. That dohicki needs to be at the dizzy end to work.

DaveL485
We have thoroughly tested one of these on a 21 Turbo.
It was a disaster. It definitely improved idle smoothness, and very low boost responsiveness (10psi), but as the boost rose it started to miss. We took the plug gaps right down to .50mm and still it blew the spark out.
Anything over 15psi was a waste of time......20psi was hopeless and with Nitrous it would have been quicker to push the car.

We tried different leads, connectors and so on, to no avail.
The nice bloke was contacted and he sent us a different unit out, some kind of uprated version....again exactly the same.
The leads were then changed back to standard kit.
The engine runs fine, doesn't miss at 22psi boost and loves the 70bhp NoS save for the 4 paddle clutch slipping lol.

All I can figure is this.....The splitfire unit splits the coil spark and gives a multi spark, hence the name lol. However, the coil spark is still the coil spark, and splitting that spark reduces its intensity as its spread over a wider area. This makes it a lot easier to blow out the spark at high boost levels.

IMO, a wasted £25, and good job there's a money back guarantee- we'll be using it!!!

Stu21T
I bought 1 of these at trax 02 and have tried it on 2 21s
the first 1 was bog standard running 18psi boost and it definitely helped with idle and it ran fine even at the boost it was running. i was using NGK platinum plugs at the time.

the next 21 was my white 1, quite heavily mod'ed and running 2 bar boost.
they once again made a big improvement on idle especially noticed as this car had a cam in it.
never blew the spark out on this car.
i was using Denso iridium plugs though and I think they had something to do with it.

The laminated letter
I've (Ian S) seen the laminated letter. I'd have written neatly if I known the letters destiny. Instead I scribbled on the back of a leaflet of his or something that I stuffed in the envelope when I returned the old lead for upgrading, to the 6 spiralled wire cores lead that he does, to see if it would correct the problem I and Marco were having of the plugs sooting around town when the Spitfire was fitted.

Thanks to Mart, Bill J and Sparkie for the photos.

See this thread


Ian S RTOC Profile https://www.rtoc.org/boards/images/bu...iend-small.gif
</td> <td width="15"> </td> <td width="200"> https://www.rtoc.org/articles/i/autof...14_150x112.jpg


https://www.rtoc.org/articles/i/autof...14_150x112.jpg

The 'laminated letter'

https://www.rtoc.org/articles/i/autof...14_122x150.jpg

The inner secret is revealed

https://www.rtoc.org/articles/i/autof...14_122x150.jpg

Not very exciting, just some washers.
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