Dyno Testing
Within days after the first track outing, we took the car to Advanced Dyno Technologies in Fairfield, CA. After strapping the Mustang to the Dynojet’s rollers, a baseline pull was made with the Plasma Booster disconnected. Max horsepower was 241.9 at 4900rpm and max torque was 283.5 at 4100rpm. The torque curve was fairly flat, breaking 260ft.lbs before 3000rpm and not dropping below it until after 5000rpm, just what a street car needs.

The ground lead was reconnected and all eight LEDS showed green for the next run. We made a pair of pulls to verify consistency. We saw HP peaks of 244.5 and 244.1, and torque peaks of 286.4 and 286.6. The graph shows a consistent gain of about 2 horsepower through the whole curve. The torque is a little more interesting. It starts as a gain of 10ft.lbs at 3000rpm, 6 at 3100 and then stays between 2 and 4 up to 5000rpm. This torque gain below 5000rpm is what the driver feels on the street, and exactly what the not-so-big 281 cubic inch mod-motor needs.

Interpreting the Results
At first glance the dyno numbers were a little disappointing. We would have liked to see a nice big 15-20 horse gain at the peak. But then we sat down and thought it through. An ignition system on a naturally aspirated car is not going to yield a large gain at a particular rpm. That is not logical. Modifications which change or move the power band (namely air flow modifications) are expected to show such large-scale changes in the curve. But with an ignition modification you would expect it to do the same thing to the motor at all rpm points - either it is producing a better burn or it isn't.

So with that said, the slight, but consistent, gains across the rpm band were a sign the Plasma Booster is doing something.

Now the question remained, is that little bit of gain enough to affect the SOP meter, and more importantly change the ET and mph. The "ignition systems don't do jack" conservative in us would have thought "no", a couple HP across the board won't yield anything at the track. But the dyno operator and other experienced class-racers in the shop immediately corrected out thinking. They actually said this type of small, but wide spread, gain is exactly the type of change which can knock of a tenth. They urged us to get back to the track, and test the car more thoroughly.

Back to the Track
Scratching our heads we decided it was necessary to try another track test, this time on slicks to try and minimize the 60 foot variable.

With a set of ET Streets bolted on, our test car, tech editor, and two drivers went back to the track, this time with rigid instructions to follow the test plan. Both drivers would make runs with and without the Plasma Booster. This time the results were more meaningful.

For the owner, the little black box was worth 0.5 mph and 1.5 tenths, going from a 13.40 at 103.1mph to 13.24 at 103.6mph. The 60 ft’s were 1.85 vs. 1.86 respectively.

Our more experienced driver hit a 13.02 at 104.3mph (1.77 60ft) without the booster. With the booster, and near identical 1.76 60ft, he managed a 12.95 at 105.49mph. Drew saw a 0.7 second and 1.2 mph improvement.

Our Conclusions
We learned a couple things from our testing. First and foremost, the importance of controlled testing. We could have stopped at the first track test, and reported a 2 mph gain. That would leave any reasonably minded reader questioning why the ET didn't improve, or why we didn't test the car without the Plamsa Booster on the same day. We're not about giving out free praises and meaningless results. So we went ahead and dynoed the car, and track tested again. The point being to deliver as objective results as possible.

The dyno results showed us something interesting; that perhaps big peak gains are not important, and that even a couple lb.ft. of torque across the entire powerband is enough to make a noticeable difference in how the car feels on the road, and performs at the track. Our follow up track testing confirmed this, as the trap speed improved, due to the Plasma Booster, to 105.49 from the previous best of 103.8.

The bottom line is that the Plasma Booster does work for the 4.6L 2V COP ignition system. Whether or not it is worthy of your $300 is for you to decide. One thing to consider is that modular motor technology is still fairly young, and that means new products will cost more than comparable pushrod parts. In a mod world $300 for a tenth reduction may actually be considered a reasonable deal. F/M