Tempest or Champion? what is the differance and real life experiance??
many thanks
Champion used to have major quality problems and they have been handling this extremely poorly, showing the maximum level of corporate arrogance: http://blog.aopa.org/opinionleaders/2015/03/19/champion-from-denial-to-acceptance/
The revised Champions are probably OK but after this episode, my support is with Tempest. Only the large electrode versions were affected, not the iridium plugs.
Do a search here on
spark plug resistors
and fill your boots
I use Tempest – URHM38S for the TB20. Absolutely perfect after hundreds of hours. Champion did change the design later but their stonewalling and whitewashing behaviour was appalling.
Iridium plugs were very much affected – see the search hits.
great (as allways lol) so Tempest it is now the next question where to buy?
aircraftspruce.eu would be my preferred supplier, located in Germany.
I use Tempest finewires too in the SR22, running smoother now than before, but they are expensive, almost $ 900 fopr the set …
I found the Tempest iridium plugs slightly cheaper than the previous Champions, which was quite funny since the Champions had the crappy resistors!
I think I paid about GBP 50 each for them, but that isn’t current data.
The iridium plugs I have been using, since about 2003, have never shown any wear. I think the longest I have gone with a set was about 700hrs and even then the electrodes showed zero wear. When I had the crank swapped at 800hrs I pointlessly bought new plugs (had the alternator etc overhauled also) and for some reason didn’t check the price and paid something like $100 each So provided there isn’t something else wrong with them which gets worse over time (which should be OK with the Tempest plugs) the price is not really an issue since they will last the entire life of the engine (between overhauls).
3 quid for the rotax 912
If you drop a spark plug (iridium or not), it’s toast. Therefore I don’t use iridium as I would be about 4x madder in case I drop one
For the same reason your mechanic would have 4x more reason to not tell you he dropped it…
Thanks, Bathman, I didn’t dare to say it