Ignore him Jody.

I'm certain his vast experience and background with small gassers is overwelming. Jody sees a lot of engines but at any time I have more engines on hand than he'll see in a month. I run them all and I would never, ever, run one of the Chinese plugs that come with DLE and some of the other Chinese engines anywhere but on a test bench. Their failure rate isn;t quite 100% but it's close. The only real separation in life cycle with them is the time of failure. Experience of a great many people, including those that run engines for a living, developed the information that people share. If one person, with no notable engine history, suddenly does better than anyone else ever has with a product I'm going to be a little suspect of the information. I mean, out of say 3,000-5,000 engines you pull 1 for the test sample and call the test a success? Get real. If it was that easy to develop reliable data all my tests would be completed a lot faster.

What makes a Chinese plug different? Quality of components and assembly of course. Anyone can crack insulators, that happens all the time, but the plugs themselves are not your friend. Too rich or too lean won't break a plug. How do I know? because I've run tests on hundreds of engines, including tests specific to the spark plug. Yu can even run an engine so hot you stick the pistons without taking a plug outside a reasonable level of usefulness. Too rich simply means you need to clean the plug.

A good plug will last most RC flyers a couple or three years of flying time. Over 100 hours of engine run time. Simply inspect and regap once a year. If buying a good plug for $3.00 to $6.00 or so is a burden for people, take up golf. You can't afford to fly anything.