440 plugs - who can read my fortune? pics of plugs

[Headrope]

Is there not a spark plug color chart on this site somewhere? Seems like there should be an area where you can find such charts.
This one aint the best, but could be useful.

[myk]

Is it possible to have dry, lean looking plugs but still have a rich fuel mixture?  I've always believed my mixture to be too rich, but my plugs would say otherwise...

[69chargeryeehaa]

i've seen that in the back of a haynes manual, they just show all the extremes, but don't show detailed readings and what each part of the plug means with color.

myk - the answer is yes and no, from what i've learned, there are many conditions to which spark plug colors exist.  idle, part throttle, cruise, power mode, and WOT (wide open throttle).  so in essance there are many things to consider, for example your jetting could be too rich which would cause carbon deposits (black soot) on the base of the plugs, and you could have a grey strap.  this could be from too lean a idle mixture, and too rich jetting, so it is a mixed answer, you could be lean in one condition, and rich in another.  hope that answered your question.

[myk]

That would make sense, as my plugs appear to be in good shape but I'm positive that the fuel mixture is too rich at some RPM's...

[firefighter3931]

  at 10* deg initial the car runs really nice, huge power, actually more power at 10* then at 13*.  just for your info mech advance is 20*deg, all in by 2100rpm, vac advance is 14*, so at 10* initial, my total mechanical advance without ping is 30*deg and total timing including vac advance is 44*deg (or 34*deg total not including initial)  any ideas? i basically power tuned it and backed off until there was no ping, just seems funny that all i can run initial is 10*? Ideas?

Nice job on the tuning. Sounds like you've found the engine's sweet spot with lots of trial and error tuning....that's usually the way it's done. As for 10* producing the best results....it depends on many factors, most notably the cam specs. The longer the duration, the more spark lead the engine will want, as a general rule.

Also, you're assuming that the balancer is correctly indexed. Without checking it you really don't know where the timing "really" is. What you do know is that it runs good at 10* initial according to the current timing mark. At this point it's something that should probably be left alone.

Here are some instructions for checking balancer indexing :

http://1970chargerregistry.com/70messageboard/viewtopic.php?t=1885


Ron

[Chryco Psycho]

if the engine seems to rich at idle & they often will &  the cam will cause that , the engine may be set lean but due to the overlap in the cam cylinders will misfire [not fire] & cause the lope , this causes raw fuel to be pushed down the exhaust unburnt + if the engine is set very lean it can cause it to misfire even more & will smeel rich even if it is lean