Champion Spark Plugs

[Waveflyer]

A very interesting article appears in the June edition of the Cessna Pilots Association magazine which is not very complimentary to Champion Spark plugs.
It would appear that their fine wire plugs are failing at an unacceptable rate and that both fine wire and massive electrode plugs have a failure prone design of the internal silicon carbide resistor.
The author suggests that just about any other make of plug does not have these problems and criticises the arrogance of Champion who suggest we modify our engine operating procedures.
Perhaps those with unexplained engine glitches may need to look no further.
I use a dozen Tempest plugs which have been faultless.

[Colin G]

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=76279

[peterh337]

Indeed; Champion have done a very dirty job on this issue, and have got away with it by the skin of their teeth.

Since 2003 I have had two batches of 12 RHM38S plugs (24 total) of which all 24 were way out of spec when they came out. Now I fly with the Tempest equivalents, which are a lot cheaper anyway.

[G-BLEW]

My next set of plugs will be Tempest fine wires.

Ian

[IhaveBeenThere]

Can someone advise where Tempest plugs are available to buy in the UK , please ?

Thanks

[G-BLEW]

Adams, Transair, AirParts etc.

Ian

[Waveflyer]

Mine came from Saywell Int, they were on special offer.

[SteveN]

A little feedback to resurrect the above. Our TB20 when we purchased it last year had a tenancy to foul plugs. Champion massive electrode plugs were fitted and to be fair they didn't look like they owed us anything though they were not worn out. In March we changed to Tempest plugs before all the above came to light for no better reason than they were cheaper. The same massive plug specifications.

It may be coincidence but in the 7 months since then we have not had one occurrence of plug fouling.

[peterh337]

I moved to Tempest finewires and over ~100hrs there has been no significant change in the resistance.

The work perfectly.

And they were cheaper than Champions.

[beelzebub]

If you have a Lycoming engine, make sure that it has Lycoming cylinders fitted. The Tempest massive electrode plug has the hex part lower down than on a Champion plug and you will potentially be unable to tighten it.

I came across an O360 a few weeks ago with replacement non Lyco (poss Superior?) cylinders and it was impossible to fit the new set of Tempest plugs to the top cylinders as you could not get a plug spanner on! We had to clean up the four best Champions to refit to the top plug holes. The bottoms were fine.

[Colin G]

50 hours on with Tempest fine wire plugs and not a sign of plug fouling.
Prior to fitting the fine wire plugs, if the engine wasn't leaned on the ground the plugs would foul up and need the big mixture pull to clean them up.

[Awful Charlie]

I've had Tempest fine wires fitted for the last 400hrs and they've been fine. Only drawback was that I needed to get my plug socket bored out a bit deeper to accommodate the slight extra length to the hex of the plug over a Champion as pointed out by beelzebub

[Flyingmac]

I've got some of these. From the same era as my engine. I suppose I could have forked out more and bought ONE fine wire.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/8-x-Champion- ... 0863118396

[Waveflyer]

I've got some of these. From the same era as my engine. I suppose I could have forked out more and bought ONE fine wire.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/8-x-Champion- ... 0863118396

The plugs on ebay can work out to be very expensive if they don't work properly.

[peterh337]

Ebay is full of fakes. I wouldn't buy anything "important" on Ebay unless it is trivial to verify.