The fact is I do know what that my advance is at all times, I monitor the timing in both EI's. And if you think it's just "Spark, bang" and the gas is burnt you really need to study up on how ignitions and how fuel mixtures burn. If that were the case you'd notice no difference with one plug or two plugs firing in your planes engine. If that were the case racing engines wouldn't bother with dual plugs and extreme high energy ignitions. If burning the mixture at the exact right time didn't matter we wouldn't need accurate timing. The fact is the faster the fuel burns the more power it makes. Why do you think timing is set Before Top Dead Center? It's to start burning the mixture just before the piston hits top dead center, to get the most bang just as the piston heads back down. Low energy spark lights less mixture than a high energy spark, fact! Hence, the complete mixture takes longer to burn. Hence the piston is already heading down as the complete mixture is burnt. Next fact, a longer duration spark the more efficient the mixture is lit, the faster more complete the mixture is lit the more power is created from that charge. Low energy ignitions like mags and pmags do not burn the mixture as efficiently as high energy ignitions, fact.
And I don't care what you think, I know for a FACT that my Lancair 360 gained a good 15 knots when I removed one Bendix mag and replaced it with one ElectroAir ignition. BTW, the mags had a fresh overhaul. I tried a pair of pmags some years ago and lost a few knots (not to mention all the trouble they were), went back to ElectroAir and there were those missing knots back again. I really can't believe how little some people know about how ignitions work yet they have no problem installing them with little expectations. A good quality ignition, installed properly, WILL increase an engines horse power and overall performance.
Let's see. I built my own engine dyno (brake type) back in the late '80s and did thousands of pulls on a couple hundred engines of all types I built professionally running many different types of ignition systems from mags to inductive discharge to CDIs and multi spark CDIs. I did hundreds of pulls on another friend's engine dyno (inertial type). Never saw an appreciable hp gain from one
properly functioning and
timed ignition to the next outside of the experimental error in the dynos.
For the last 24 years, my company has designed and manufactured EIs for automotive and aviation- many thousands of them, many used for racing with high revving, high boost, turbo engines.
I've assisted two teams at Reno win Sport Class Gold using our equipment in 2010 and 2018.
I might, just might, know a little bit about the subject.
I never disputed that lighting off the mixture at the correct time is very important to make max hp but once it lights off, the ignition system is out of the picture for that combustion event.
As I stated before here, ignitions either light the mixture or not and a
good EI with a wider plug gap increases Ignition Probability at high cylinder pressure levels and especially so when sick rich but you shouldn't be sick rich to make best power anyway, you should be around 12.5 AFR. I don't know anything about Pmag spark energy. If it's weaker than a mag, that's not good under certain conditions but an atmo Lycoming is an easy thing to light off compared to one running 3200 rpm and 85+ inches or a drag car running 9000 and 120 inches- we've done both.
The ElectroAir is nothing magical, it's a standard inductive discharge setup like SDS. Some other factor was involved with your speed increase. Either it was missing many combustion events with the mag or it was timed incorrectly- only those 2 possibilities. Lighting off
EVERY power stroke at the
correct time is the key to making maximum power.
You might want to brush up on ignition theory. Sounds like you have have many misconceptions based on your post above.
We don't advertise power increases from our ignition systems because based on my 35+ years experience building and testing race engines, there isn't any. You go on believing whatever you want but I wouldn't want to mislead anyone that's a good reason to buy an EI system.
15 knots on a 200+ knot Lancair or RV is a lot of power, like maybe 15%. I don't know anyone else who claims to gain 30hp on a 200hp Lyc using EI.