Hi,
apparently either not much interest or knowledge about such ignition systems here.
Fwiw I sent the author of the book a few questions and here is his reply:
you don't need an electrical background if you simply use an off the shelf cdi/msd intended for or at least compatible with your engine. You simply hook that up based on the manufacturers diagram and then add the hv diodes in the correct place and that's it. Super simple on an analog ignition system.
No plasma happens in the dist. Cap. - it is bypassed and plasma only happens at the plugs.
Most people have only bench tested it but a handful have put it on vehicles including myself. I put it on a ej25 subaru engine just to prove it can be done with a wasted spark ignition coil pack setup. I proved the point and then removed it because I'm not interested in doing a bunch of mods to get around the computer sabotage. One person put it on his vw 1300cc bug and got a 43% increase in mileage and about a 100f drop in temperature. He leaned out his carb, dripped water on his exhaust manifold and used a cowling to duct the steam into the intake. My interest is gas generator sets and not vehicles.
The only way for the plasma to damage the engine is if the plasma is way to big - it grows bigger under compressed air so what you see on the bench gets bigger in an engine. That is why I only stick with the stock caps inside of off the shelf cdi/msd units, which have fairly small capacitance caps to be able to be charged up at high speeds. I've make larger than golf ball size plasma bursts from a plug on the bench, but that is just to see what the possibilities were. That size plasma can run an engine just on water, but while destroying the engine at the same time. So again, stay with the caps in the off the shelf cdi/msd units.
This is of course all at your own risk - I'm simply bringing this technology to the awareness of the public and can't be responsible for any damage.
The only thing that will wear out quick are the plugs, they need to be non-resistor plugs and some last longer than others. I was just turned onto some iridium non resistor plugs and want to test those - might be the best plugs compatible with the plasma so far.
12v into a coil will step up to a high voltage spark - with the msd or cdi, it is several hundred volts stepped up into the coil instead of 12v so there is going to be an even higher spark voltage. That is what the capacitive discharge does so that is already covered. My method is using a cap discharge, while the antiquated method of doing the plasma was using a separate cap charger to simply put the cap in parallel with the spark gap. Mine is superior to that because you can just buy an off the shelf unit, you have a higher initiating voltage and it is more reliable especially if there are high compression high performance applications.
The system is not a replacement for your mechanical points - those will still be used to tell the system when to fire.
I don't know if you're engine is hard to start in the winter, but this plasma will start ethanol is sub freezing temps so with that being the case, it is probably the world's most reliable ignition for starting engines in cold temps. If it can do that with ethanol, gasoline is a non-issue in any temp.
I hope that helps.
