Help identify! Never seen this before

It has a gap inside. The theory is the voltage has to build up before it jumps the gap and therefore your voltage at the plug is maximum. They've been around forever.... I think the patent is over 100 years old.

Basically... snake oil.

 

Google Meissner Spark Intensifier to see some cool early versions.

 

So, you could be MY uncle daddy?

 

Absolutely correct. Used to put them on oil burners supposed to help burn off deposits by making a hotter spark. SNAKE OIL! Cool looking though.

 

Thanks big john. I was trying to figure out how it could work. The engine ran the same with or without it.

 

Just think of it's value after Larry gets it

 

If nothing else you have some thing most of us don't. Thanks for posting I have learned some thing today.

 

I got one from a box of junk from a friend,I put it on my 66 F250 and really did not notice any difference but it did not hurt that way it ran. I kept it on until I pulled the 352 for a 460.

 

Yes, every now and then I do that on my John Deere Model B to clear a fouled plug on the right side cylinder.

 

If you put it on your car, be sure you have your wheelie bars adjusted.

 

Now that is the kind of schematic I can understand". LOL

 

I'd rather have one of those mini super chargers with the impellers underneath your carburetor. A definite go fast product.

Gary

 

There is a little bit of science behind adding a gap in the spark circuit.
Combination of post 30 and 31.
// If // you (your engine) tends to lightly foul its plugs then an inline gap might just provide noticeably smoother running.

Champion prefix U - auxilliary gap.
Some outboard engines from the 70s and 80s call for ULxx auxilliary gap spark plugs.
http://www.romeosmarine.com/images/Outboards/Spark Plug Chart 2007 BRP.pdf
When outboards went to the very fast voltage rise CD ignitions the usefulness of the auxilliary/booster gap pretty much disappeared.

http://firetrucksandequipment.tpub.com/TM-5-4210-230-14P-1/css/TM-5-4210-230-14P-1_615.htm

 

Way back when I was a student in high school autoshop we had a guy in town who was a real sucker for those mail order and Western Auto mileage/performance improver trinkets and once a year he would show up with the car running pretty rough and we would end up taking all of his latest magic trinkets off the engine and do a tune up and send him on his way for another year with that box of trinkets in the trunk. Sure enough he would show up the next year with more junk on the car and we would have to do it all over again.

 

As a kid in Springfield, MO, I watched a guy peddling these at the fair. He had some kind of crapwagon with a 4 cyl motor. Hood was up, car was running. He had a fairly large tachometer connected for all to see. He would grab the coil wire, pull it off, insert the magic gizmo, replace the coil wire and the engine RPM would go up about 200-300 rpm. NONE of the potential buyers (I wasn't a potential buyer) noticed that his motor didn't stop or miss a beat when he pulled the coil wire off. He was doing a decent business selling them.

 

Nice mike!
Yeah, this thing seems to scream magic beans

 

Our next door neighbor came home with his family from the Evergreen State Fair one summer. He'd bought one of these gadgets, and knowing I was a car guy, had to show it to me. He told me they had an inline, 6 cylinder engine with one of these things installed on the coil, and one at a time they'd remove a plug wire, or several plug wires. He even "said" they removed ALL the plug wires, and it was still running (???). You know they had some kind of hidden ignition setup no one could see. Course all that's running through my mind, is J.C. Whitney type of snake oil gadget. I finally asked him that if it really worked, how come all the auto manufacturers were't using them? Why those engineers would't want to be in the for front of "better mileage, power, easier starting, and the rest of the B.S. the fair hawkers claim? I think that offended him, as he went into his house, and the next day his wife said I'd upset him. She was in agreement with me on the fact that it was just a bogus gimmick, and she thought it was a little funny also. He was a really nice guy, had married a woman with 3 kids already, and she'd had her tubes tied after the last one, so there was't any way they were going to have a kid of their own. They lived next door for about two and 1/2 years, and at age 46, he had a massive heart attack, and died in her arms. So, your post and gadget makes me think of Dave Huston, a good neighbor who we really do miss. Two people have died in that house, both from heart attacks, and that house has been resold more than any on our 15 house, cul de sac. I am Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

My grandfather invested a lot into these old gimmicks. I pulled one of these off my old coil and just put it on the shelf with the Luber-Finer.

 

You got that right, & the date . I remember them too at the state fair in ND. I hate to admit it but I must come clean........I bought one. I never could get it set right to get more HP !