Tempest plugs

[Dan Thomas]

"when so many Champs were failing on the tester"? Is this the Champion test stand where you test the spark under pressure and see it visually through the window? Pretty much the only plugs I have seen fail were cracked ones, and I have had 2 or 3 cracked plugs over about 15 years in one plane.
Ive never seen a Auburn or Autolite aviation plug.

I was a director of maintenance in a flight school for 12 years and looked after a fleet of around seven airplanes, plus or minus an airplane or so from time to time. The Champs would usually stop sparking well before the 135 psi target, and sometimes one could hear the spark arcing in the connector well. The ceramic wasn't cracked but that voltage had to go somewhere when the internal resistor wouldn't conduct it. The Auburns and Autolites simply didn't do that. After the flight school I worked in an aircraft shop for five years and found the same thing.

Tempest took over the Autolite line of plugs a few years ago.