New history on Champion plugs

I'm confused. What did he say that we didn't already know?
 
I talked to MX today about Tempest V Champion and he said Champions. I said Temespts are more popular on the interwebz and his answer to that was" let's pull your plugs and I'll show you why". .. We didn't pull my Champions, but he was pretty firm Bout it.
 
unless the new Champion plugs have a different resistor design.....I'm getting Tempest next.
 
Unit74 said:
I talked to MX today about Tempest V Champion and he said Champions. I said Temespts are more popular on the interwebz and his answer to that was" let's pull your plugs and I'll show you why". .. We didn't pull my Champions, but he was pretty firm Bout it.
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Mechanics are not all well informed and often act on consumer allegiance rather than fact. You see the same with car brands or anything else. BTW, Champions were giving us problems in the early 90s when I was wrenching on planes.
 
My understanding is Champion redesigned their plugs and mitigated that issue, correct? I was thinking about swapping them out for tempests, that's why I floated it across his wrench.
 
Unit74 said:
My understanding is Champion redesigned their plugs and mitigated that issue, correct? I was thinking about swapping them out for tempests, that's why I floated it across his wrench.
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I'm gonna wait for the good reports and the all clear....before I give Champion another whirl.

The last set of fine wires had issues with internal resistance. After a short period of time they were well above the 5,000 ohm spec. This is a big deal for high altitude operations....and if one is trying to run lean. The higher resistance will drive the mags to work harder and produce more internal arcing.....or stress things out faster.

this is what I found....and posted on Mike's CSOB site.

RHB32S-ResistorReplacement.JPG

RHB32S-ResistorArcing.JPG
 
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Checkout_my_Six said:
I'm gonna wait for the good reports and the all clear....before I give Champion another whirl.

The last set of fine wires had issues with internal resistance. After a short period of time they were well above the 5,000 ohm spec. This is a big deal for high altitude operations....and if one is trying to run lean. The higher resistance will drive the mags to work harder and produce more internal arcing.....or stress things out faster.
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Ran into that once. Plane presented like the mag was breaking down when it got hot at altitude. Cleaned it (dual Bendix) bench tested it, got everything perfect even changed out the condenser; same. Turned out half the plug resistors were bad, even though they all tested fine in the testing box. It was puzzling to diagnose, finally it was, "It has to be the plugs" so we changed them as sure enough. That was the first time I ran into the issue and that was in 1991 or 92, so it's been around more than a while.
 
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I had a set of champions that didn't last a year before having resistance issues. I replaced the champions with tempest and all has been well. Champion will need a few years of good pireps before they make it back into my engine.
 
I guess I still don't get what we learned by reading that article.

We knew Champion had issues.
We knew Tempest was using this to great advantage. And
We knew Champion had quietly changed their design.

So, the only thing Mike did was to draw a cute parallel to the five stages of grief.

Oh, and to make sure we get to see this again (emphasis mine):

Mike Busch is arguably the best-known A&P/IA in general aviation, honored by the FAA in 2008 as National Aviation Maintenance Technician of the Year. Mike is a 7,500-plus hour pilot and CFI, an aircraft owner for 45 years, a prolific aviation author, co-founder of AVweb, and presently heads a team of world-class GA maintenance experts at Savvy Aviator. Mike's book Manifesto: A Revolutionary Approach to General Aviation Maintenance is available from Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle versions.
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:rolleyes:
 
yousegottaproblemwidobviousselfpromotion?
 
timwinters said:
I guess I still don't get what we learned by reading that article.

We knew Champion had issues.
We knew Tempest was using this to great advantage. And
We knew Champion had quietly changed their design.

So, the only thing Mike did was to draw a cute parallel to the five stages of grief.

Oh, and to make sure we get to see this again (emphasis mine):



:rolleyes:
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:confused: It's part of his marketing, what do you want? This wasn't about advertising the problem, this was about advertising his roll in discovering the problem and getting Champion to admit to, and fix it. It is his David and Goliath story. It's an infomercial for his services.
 
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His role? Kinda like "his role" in the 400 series Cessna wing spar issue? ROFL

I definitely agree with your last sentence.
 
timwinters said:
His role? Kinda like "his role" in the 400 series Cessna wing spar issue? ROFL

I definitely agree with your last sentence.
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There is no truth in advertising, heck, the courts even ruled we don't deserve truth in the news. Our society revolves around spin.
 
Geez...... People pay HUGE prices for FAA approved/ well tested and manufactured aircraft parts thinking those parts are the very best someone could buy........ Consider a fine wire certified plug is around 100 bucks.. And it turns out to be an expensive and dangerous experiment run by a name brand company using the flying pubic as guinnie pigs and test bed.......

Where the hell is the FAA when quality control is supposably paramount..:mad2::mad2::mad2:....
 
N801BH said:
Geez...... People pay HUGE prices for FAA approved/ well tested and manufactured aircraft parts thinking those parts are the very best someone could buy........ Consider a fine wire certified plug is around 100 bucks.. And it turns out to be an expensive and dangerous experiment run by a name brand company using the flying pubic as guinnie pigs and test bed.......

Where the hell is the FAA when quality control is supposably paramount..:mad2::mad2::mad2:....
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It's all fun and games....till someone loses an eye. Obviously it ain't a safety issue.....:rolleyes2:

But, we have good news.....the free market will correct and fix this going forward. :yes:
 
N801BH said:
Geez...... People pay HUGE prices for FAA approved/ well tested and manufactured aircraft parts thinking those parts are the very best someone could buy........ Consider a fine wire certified plug is around 100 bucks.. And it turns out to be an expensive and dangerous experiment run by a name brand company using the flying pubic as guinnie pigs and test bed.......

Where the hell is the FAA when quality control is supposably paramount..:mad2::mad2::mad2:....
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Fine wire plugs have been around for a long time, and it wasn't Champion that had them at the beginning, it was either Bosch or NGK from what I recall.

Government is there to save business, not us. The reason there is the parts system there is is to protect one business from another. The biggest business is Insurance, because they are a direct owned Finance Industry company. Air Carriers have Strict Liability, which means their insurance pays no matter what. The regulations exist in order to stabilize the market into something the actuaries can predict so they can set premiums.

Stuff like this is not costing multi million dollar liability suits, nobody cares.
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
But, we have good news.....the free market will correct and fix this going forward. :yes:
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Arrow115 said:
Champion will need a few years of good pireps before they make it back into my engine.
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There is nothing Champion can do to get me to put them back in my plane, short of some super new design that saves me 10% of fuel and has years of proven reliability.

The only other way I would consider putting Champion products in my plane was if Tempest screws up and starts putting out bad parts. It is going to take more than "We're all better now!" to get me to trust Champion again.
 
timwinters said:
I guess I still don't get what we learned by reading that article.

We knew Champion had issues.
We knew Tempest was using this to great advantage. And
We knew Champion had quietly changed their design.

So, the only thing Mike did was to draw a cute parallel to the five stages of grief.

Oh, and to make sure we get to see this again (emphasis mine):



:rolleyes:
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I suppose I posted it because it mentioned that Champion was hearing, via the internet, that their plugs were junk. What I find most amazing is that it took 20 years to admit it, while still selling defective plugs. And there are still defective plugs on supplier shelves, too. No recall that I know of.

Dan
 
Unit74 said:
My understanding is Champion redesigned their plugs and mitigated that issue, correct? I was thinking about swapping them out for tempests, that's why I floated it across his wrench.
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Find another mechanic. Anyone A&P that recommends Champion spark plugs after what they did and continue to do (deny claims for compensation for a defective product) should not be turning wrenches on anything but Fords.
 
To anyone that says "I'll give Champions another try if they check out after a while" is a ****ing idiot. Why would you buy from a company that endangered so many airplane owners with a product that was KNOWN to be defective? Why do that?

Why would you not support Tempet for bringing the issue to light and built a better spark plug? Why would you support a company that cheated you, and tried to KILL you? They knew their plugs were DEFECTIVE! :mad:

Pi$$ on Champion forever! Don't ever buy another one from Champion! Ever!
 
Kiddo's Driver said:
There is nothing Champion can do to get me to put them back in my plane, short of some super new design that saves me 10% of fuel and has years of proven reliability.

The only other way I would consider putting Champion products in my plane was if Tempest screws up and starts putting out bad parts. It is going to take more than "We're all better now!" to get me to trust Champion again.
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Thank you!!!! :yes::yes::yes:
 
timwinters said:
We knew Champion had quietly changed their design.
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Well, I didn't know they changed their design, so thank you to the OP for the post and link. So the question is now, is there any difference anymore between Champion and Tempest?
 
Dan Thomas said:
I suppose I posted it because it mentioned that Champion was hearing, via the internet, that their plugs were junk. What I find most amazing is that it took 20 years to admit it, while still selling defective plugs. And there are still defective plugs on supplier shelves, too. No recall that I know of.

Dan
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That's because they are not defective at all. They are inferior to the competition. There is a huge difference between defective and inferior. Nobody dies because of failed spark plug resistors.
 
Geico266 said:
To anyone that says "I'll give Champions another try if they check out after a while" is a ****ing idiot. Why would you buy from a company that endangered so many airplane owners with a product that was KNOWN to be defective? Why do that?

Why would you not support Tempet for bringing the issue to light and built a better spark plug? Why would you support a company that cheated you, and tried to KILL you? They knew their plugs were DEFECTIVE! :mad:

Pi$$ on Champion forever! Don't ever buy another one from Champion! Ever!
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Show me the NTSB report where somebody died from a failed spark plug. I can't recall ever reading that a spark plug was fingered as the culprit in a death. I may be wrong, but I think you are wildly dramatizing this issue. :rolleyes2:
 
Dav8or said:
Show me the NTSB report where somebody died from a failed spark plug. I can't recall ever reading that a spark plug was fingered as the culprit in a death. I may be wrong, but I think you are wildly dramatizing this issue. :rolleyes2:
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If they ain't that critical... Why the hell are they 100 bucks a piece...:dunno::dunno::dunno::rolleyes:
 
Dav8or said:
Show me the NTSB report where somebody died from a failed spark plug. I can't recall ever reading that a spark plug was fingered as the culprit in a death. I may be wrong, but I think you are wildly dramatizing this issue. :rolleyes2:
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Death? no. ****ty shorts Yes.
 
Why hasn't anyone gained STC approval for removing the carbon resistor, and replacing it with a radio shack resistor?
 
Dav8or said:
Well, I didn't know they changed their design, so thank you to the OP for the post and link. So the question is now, is there any difference anymore between Champion and Tempest?
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Dave, it was talked about here last August.
 
Dav8or said:
Show me the NTSB report where somebody died from a failed spark plug. I can't recall ever reading that a spark plug was fingered as the culprit in a death. I may be wrong, but I think you are wildly dramatizing this issue. :rolleyes2:
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Look under engine failure. ;)

Sparks plugs are fairly important. If they stop working ( MANY Champions have) planes didn't run well, and engines lose power or quit all together.

If you want to support a company that KNOWINGLY ignored plane owner complaints, continued to build DEFECTIVE spark plugs and sell them, have many documented quality issues, and fought against any design changes by all means do so. I think most plane owners realize every dollar spent is like voting for that company. I will NEVER buy anything Champion again.
 
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