View from the gutter

["Tom Brown" <tbrown@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ben, List:

My point about the Bosch 4418 plugs is that I've used them and they work well.
In response, I get a long treatise concluding that multi-lead plugs, like
Bosch 4418s, aren't any good...based on nothing but some dressed up theories.

I'm sorry to be so cranky, Ben, but I don't like being negated offhand like
this when I and many others know something works.   If I'd just seen them on a
store shelf and thought they looked cool, I'd have happily bowed to your
superior experience, education and intellect.

There is a long and good track record for the Autolites as well.  I just get a
little spooked when that electrode sticks farther into the cylinder than a
stock plug.   Both work better than the OEM plugs as far as I'm concerned and
both cost less.

I probably shouldn't have brought our mutual friend Lentini into this.  He
tried so many things on his bike, it's a wonder that it lasted as long as it
did.   He was quite an experimenter.  The low-flow fuel filter theory does
make a lot of sense, but I'd think that he'd feel a lack of top-end
immediately if he wasn't getting enough fuel.   That's what happens when the
stock ones start to clog.

Anyway, he had tried much larger valve lash, (I tried that and just couldn't
put up with the clatter!) advanced timing, recommended and used mid-grade
fuel, used substitute oil, fuel and air filters...you name it, he'd tried it
and report on it in as objective a way as possible.  The 0=0 procedure really
helped out a lot of surge sufferers, including myself.  GS intake tubes were
also a huge discovery for RTs and RSs.   Cool stuff.

I'm of the mind that the timing advance he used combined with mid-grade fuel
probably caused some detenation over a long period.  Running lean due to a low
flow fuel filter coudn't have helped.

Autolites are probably perfectly safe, but they do stick into the cylinder an
exta 16th of an inch or so.   I haven't measured the new plugs on the 1200s,
They may be even shorter than the old stock plugs.   The stroke on the 1200s
is supposedly longer, with the bore being the same.  I will check this before
installing any substitute plugs.   Don't want to put something in that
contacts the piston.   Wouldn't be prudent, as GHWB might say.

OK, now I'm going riding.

- -TB

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