Canman an idle bar is a strip of metal that goes over the hole where the glow element is. It is used usually in older non-schneurle ported engines to keep fuel from drowning out the element. You as far as I know cannot buy a non-schneurle ported engine today. As stated before they do help in an inverted engine. I have also used them with sucess in a piped or tuned muffler engine. They may help out in breaking in an engine when they are running very rich. I will have to try it some day. I hope this answers your question.

Mark Shuman