hey guys, i was told in another thread to take pictures of my spark plugs and post them to so maybe someone could take a look and see how they look. I run gm stage 2 with a 2.8 pulley since august 2006. I still managed over 30 miles per gallon driving from akron to new york city, over a 7 hour trip. Car runs really good, it seems like theres no major problems, but maybe you guys can take a look at it and see if i should put the 3.0 pulley back on for realiabilty issues.

 

Looks like it's ashy. but that's just me. Here is an example of if it is ashy.


Ash Deposits

click on image for full size view

These are light-brownish deposits that are encrusted to the ground and/or center electrode(s). This situation is caused by oil and/or fuel additives. This condition can cause misfires.

The cure for this is to verify worn valve guides or valve seals, not using fuel additives, or you might even try changing fuel brands. By the way, a hotter plug is what most people try to fix this problem. You need to first understand that the plug is NOT typically the problem.

http://www.centuryperformance.com/spark2.asp for more information on situations with plugs and what they would look like.

 

Not the greatest pic of the plugs, but... I'm gonna say that the exsessive residue buildup would worry me. But it really depends how many miles you have on those. You've had them in for just over a year? Not good. I would change them, and the pully. But try to get a better/closer pic.

Hope this helps.

 

can you get me a crisp picture of the plug.. just the top section...

hard to tell because its fuzzy but it looks like ash deposits or possibly running lean.... need a more detailed close up pic

going off from blurryness.. if you want me to be picky ill say

1) to much timing (2 spots suggest this)
2) rich @ idle & lean @ WOT (again 2 spots suggest this)
3) i would go with a colder plug (1 spot suggest this)

 

Try a macro setting on the camera.
They don't look that bad to me, they aren't going to be clean/bare metal ever.

 

I can tell you, that is the look of lean. I have a kick ass tune for the 2.8's on the 42# injectors that will fix your problem, and make your car a little more fun to drive PM me if you are interested in buying it.

 

I just swapped mine. I had only stage 2 and they were pretty black with 1 spot. Not white like those.

 

I like mine
p.s I'll have to pull mine now I'm curious what they look like.

Here's a pic of mine sorry cam phone is all i have.

 

OneFast20, hard to see from the pics but it doesn't look that bad. Perhaps a tad on the lean side. A better pic would get more opinions I think.

My opinion is spend the cash on a wideband. Eliminate the guessing on if it is lean or not. The couple hundred you spend now, may save you thousands down the road.

 

X2!

From what I can tell it looks like you may be a little lean and might be getting some KR. Mine looked very similar if not worse when my car had the NGK's. I would get the ZEX 8-2003 plugs to replace those because they have worked better in several peoples cars vs. the NGK's.

 

Yeah, I pulled my spark plugs about a week ago and they looked as ideal as you can get! After I hooked up my wideband I run almost exactly at 14.7 (ranges from 14.5-15.0) on cruising and idle, and my AFR at WOT ranges from 11.1 at 3000 up to 11.9-12.0 at 7000. So that just proves that contrary to popular belief 12.0 AFR IS NOT too lean.

 

Find an old Hanes car manual, or other manual and you should find a spark plug guide on the wear etc.. Ussually a colour photo, that will explain your plugs for you.. Don't quote me on this but ya it looks like your running hot with the discolouration on the tip..