Originally Posted by homer j

i work on harriers for a living in the RAF. the main reason that mag plugs as we call them were introduced is to monitor wear rates in the engine and associated components such as gearboxes or generators giving us an early indication of likely component failure. the use of mag plugs in car engines, especially road car engines, in my opinion is not massively beneficial. the simple reason being that the small amounts of metal floating around in the oil that Karlos mentioned won't really cause much damage as the tolerances are not close enough for it to make a difference, also how many tuners do you know of that have the same sophisticated equipment as the military or civil aviation companies that can measure the wear rates according to how much material the plugs pick up? in effect the plugs are not doing the job they were designed for, but instead are there to provide some piece of mind to users who don't necessarily understand the true function of what they have bought. if this is the case and people genuinely think that fitting one of these sump plugs is saving their engines then i suppose thats all that matters but i just thought that people might like to hear what mag plugs were designed for so that maybe people have a better understanding of there use. i won't be suprised if i get a bashing for this comment but at the end of the day that is my opinion based around a working knowledge of these pieces of equipment gleaned from nearly eight years working in the aerospace industry. the simple fact is it's down to each individual to make their own opinions, mine is that i wouldn't fit one as i see it as unnecessary.

regards

Tom