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2015 Beta 250 Evo Spark Plug Confusion


oldgrumps
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The R stands for Resistor which is required when using a CDI as the Beta has. So there is a  BP which is non resistor type and BR which has the resistor.

 

Buy the BR7ES resistor type which is the correct plug.

 

 

Edited by billyt
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This is what the 2014 owner's manual specs, and what came on my 2013 (i.e. as delivered from the factory, it had a br7es fitted, not a bpr7es):

 

Spark plug ............................................................................ NGK BR7ES

Edited by heffergm
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As Billy observed you can't go wrong with the stock plug.

 

The resistor plugs actually came about to suppress radio noise in autos. By reducing the edge rate of the spark the resistor plugs reduced the radio waves generated by the ignition firing. They also slightly increase the duration of the spark while dissipating a small part of the available energy. Performance wise there is virtually no difference. Cleaning your air filter will make a much larger difference. Can you blow up your CDI with a non-resistor plug? Very unlikely. Consider how the CDI works. A coil charges a capacitor up to around 300V. The charge in this capacitor is dumped through the primary of the ignition coil by triggering an SCR. The SCR is similar to a transistor that acts like a switch. A pulse of current from the trigger coil (yeah the bit that usually fails on a Beta stator) shorts the SCR. I admit that's a bit simplistic as the modern CDI has a microcontroller in it that senses the trigger pulse and adds a delay to the trigger based on engine speed (which is how you can have programmable ignition curves). So this large current of respectable voltage gets dumped into the ignition coil which is actually two coils with a common core A.K.A. a transformer. The primary winding which is thicker wire with less turns to build up a nice strong magnetic field, and a secondary winding with lots of turns of smaller wire to build up a nice high voltage in the tens of thousands of volts at a still respectable knock you on your ass current. The spark plug gap in the cylinder is what's called a negative resistance device like a flash bulb or a lightning bolt. With no voltage across it presents a resistance of many giga Ohms. As the current in the ignition coil secondary builds up it has nowhere to go causing a voltage to build across the plug gap. It's worth noting at this point that the 10kOhm resistance of the plug cap and/or resistor plug in series with the giga Ohm resistance of the gap is insignificant. As the voltage builds up the air fuel mixture in the plug gap starts to ionize. Electrons are stripped away from the atoms in the gap and a path of ionized gas is created between the electrodes. Once this happens the resistance of the plug gap effectively goes to zero. When this happens the energy stored in the magnetic field of the coil is dumped across the gap. Since the resistance of the gap is now nominally zero the voltage out of the coil drops as the current is dumped across the gap creating the hot part of the spark. Now the plug/cap resistance come into play limiting the peak current the secondary winding can dump across the gap and extending the duration of the spark. Current will continue to flow until the voltage of the secondary drops to the point where the mixture in the gap is no longer able to maintain an ionization path. The only possible mechanisms I can see for a non-resistor plug to damage a CDI is if a larger inductive kickback to the primary coil occurs. I think that's pretty unlikely though as the impedance looking back into the SCR is fairly low

 

 

The projected tip plug is a similar story. In the early days the wide temperature swings of air cooled bikes running 32:1 mixtures had better plug longevity with projected tips because they are better at cleaning residue off the insulator. Modern water-cooled, electro-fusion cylinder bikes running at 80:1 - 100:1 oil ratios with higher compression ratios don't have the fouling problems so a projected tip plug isn't necessary. Will it hurt the engine? Not unless there is an interference with the piston.

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. Will it hurt the engine? Not unless there is an interference with the piston.

 

It's the OEM specified plug. 

 

 

Also for some reason, Beta has changed the spec for the plug to the projected tip version. Must be a reason for it.  That said, I just checked my '15 and it has the regular BR7ES version in it. I'll give the project tip one a try. Here's what NGK says about it:

 

A projected spark plug protrudes into the combustion chamber further and provides higher ignitability and improved performance. Simply this can be understood by representing the combustion chamber as a circle. A projected spark plug in effect produces a spark in the middle of the circle (or combustion chamber) allowing for an even flame spread. Conversely, a non-projected spark plug means the flame spread is not even.

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