Plug pics

What say you plug reading gurus. Right side looks pretty close, left somewhat rich. Both carbs are jetted identically. Note more carbon up the threads on the left side. I'm having a hard time making out the timing indicator mark on the ground strap. In bright sunlight I think I can make out something right at the apex of each bend. I'm wondering if I might have got a little to much anti-sieze on and it ran down the ground strap now obscruring the mark. I'm pretty paranoid about stripped plug threads. Bike doesn't have any running issues. Plugs have several thousand miles on them.

htown16 said:

What say you plug reading gurus. Right side looks pretty close, left somewhat rich. Both carbs are jetted identically. Note more carbon up the threads on the left side. I'm having a hard time making out the timing indicator mark on the ground strap. In bright sunlight I think I can make out something right at the apex of each bend. I'm wondering if I might have got a little to much anti-sieze on and it ran down the ground strap now obscruring the mark. I'm pretty paranoid about stripped plug threads. Bike doesn't have any running issues. Plugs have several thousand miles on them.

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If your running unleaded fuel there will be no ring on the insulator that means anything.

Looking at the side electrode and what I can see of the thread base I would say it looks rich if this is after a plug chop. It might be alright if it's running around town. Jim

Slight color density difference could just be the hooks were not indexed the same direction. Sight soot implies mixture on safe side no matter the gas octane sign on pump. I slime all sparkplug threads too, but nil thread risk to put in new set with less to eliminate drool factor on hook thermal staining. Mark the hook gap on outside to get idea if that's detectable. Most say aim kernal gap at the center of chamber, not that its something mere street bikes need bother with but maybe a clue on finer tuning your sense of balanced combustion.

Not speaking to plug color but to your use of anti-seize. A friend recently broke a NGK plug off in a bikes head that had been placed with a torque wrench to spec.. we looked into and spoke to a tech from NGK. Their website and the tech said to never use anti seize because it lubricates the threads and you will over torque them & yes this Leeds to the smaller diameter (10mm) plugs breaking quite often!! . They say the factory coating on them is designed to work as a built in anti seize so you should not need more. I have always used it on plugs in everything I own and the one that broke was one of the 10mm size, smaller than our bikes use but the tech said although it's not as common but the bigger ones do break.. Just food for thought. Glenn.

Duh, just how many in/outs will factory plastic anti-sieze last, in a decades old set of air cooled engine threads? Still better put you own anit-sieze on as also helps to seal a bit so even less torque needed to seal and mate surfaces for heat flow. I hand tighten till stops then tool it another 1/4-ish turn till nicely snug is all. No idea the lbft. Personally I don't think the anit-seize had any effect on these instant plugs as the head gets so hot so fast any grease component would of leaked down and burnt up on first ride and any entering chamber is coming in from the outside of threads so nil chance to even get
'close' to insulation area. Could try one heat range hotter especially if more low throttle use than WOT and turnpike fast.

Yes, plated plugs are not supposed to require antisieze.

I still use just a touch and then torque them to a lower value because of it. I use 10mm plugs in my Norton.

If you get antisieze on the insulator when you are installing the plug -the plug will not recover. Jim

Silvery anti-seize has metalic dust elements so about any of it on insulator would cause shorts w/o sparks. Heck the dark soot stains in the insulation texture pores is often enough to short the voltage bleed around the gap.
Pitty the poor fella or museum team that eventually inherits comnoz special to maintain or restore. With as much life as he's put into it, I'd want to be buried or burned up on it. Basically I don't think ya can put on too much anti-sieze on plugs to bother anything but sure can if not enough. There is some sealant help with enough anti-sieze too. Most gets wiped off on top head threads so hard to get too much near chamber unless ya put some inside head threads first.

Those plugs look fine to me, I must be old school because I thought you wanted just a bit of the anti-sieze on them???? Most often once I have pulled the plugs I use a new set, I just feel it better to have that new crush washer there to seal with. I know you'll all say it's a waste but I only pull them once every couple years. :wink:

Those plugs look like they have done a few miles. Didn't the test Hobot brought to our notice specify new plugs when reading. The test also recommends using a magnifying glass.
Those plugs to me indicate there aren't too many problems. If they were too hot they would probably be white, but with unleaded fuels, they could have a grey to black look, with everything fine and dandy.
Dereck

kerinorton said:

Those plugs look like they have done a few miles. Didn't the test Hobot brought to our notice specify new plugs when reading. The test also recommends using a magnifying glass.
Those plugs to me indicate there aren't too many problems. If they were too hot they would probably be white, but with unleaded fuels, they could have a grey to black look, with everything fine and dandy.
Dereck

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With unleaded fuel the insulator should be as white as when it was new. Discolor indicates either incomplete combustion, oil consumption or high mileage. Jim

Ugh, new plugs used for a proper plug chop should not show insulation stains on correct mixture on new age lean burn oxygenated ethanol spiked gasoline, but will show some soot and stains like these good looking plugs after 1000's of miles of all kinds of throttle and load conditions. Once ya find a good plug buy em in V8 packs. IIRC it was Ed the Tomato Man an early CNW Cdo rider who sent me the H--da plug eye opener. We should try to find some modern examples of what a many 1000 mile used plug on new age gas "should" look like.

when we changed to unleaded fuels in NZ, we noticed the black exhaust pipes and often found the plugs has a dryish sooty look about them. You have to remember I worked in the city and the cars would have only been driven accordingly when they came in for a service. Plugs looked cleaner than they would have been, using the leaded fuel. I've happily been out of that game for 14 years now so maybe I am a bit out of touch.
Dereck

kerinorton said:

when we changed to unleaded fuels in NZ, we noticed the black exhaust pipes and often found the plugs has a dryish sooty look about them. You have to remember I worked in the city and the cars would have only been driven accordingly when they came in for a service. Plugs looked cleaner than they would have been, using the leaded fuel. I've happily been out of that game for 14 years now so maybe I am a bit out of touch.
Dereck

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Yeah, the exhaust pipes will definitely be sooty. The plugs will soot up when running cold with the choke but a good run should return them to near new color.

To do a good test for mixture you would warm the engine up thoroughly and then install new plugs and run it in the throttle range you are checking. Then stop the motor without idle time and check the color.

The center insulator should be white. No black pepper flakes or shiny balls that would indicate fast timing or very lean mixture.

The bottom edge of the threaded part should be 1/2 gray and 1/2 black to all gray. Mixtures leaner than about 13.8 to 1 will turn the end of the threads all gray but you want to be careful with plug heat range when you are getting that lean with a Norton. That is where they will make the best power but if you run a plug hotter than an NGK 8 grade or equivalent you can run into pre-ignition pretty easily.
This would be after a hard run with no-lead fuel. Jim

BTW, nice job exposing the innards and deserves some pointers for some us novices. Best way for me I've seen was cut off wheel around the whole base of threads so they come off as a cylinder leaving a naked center. One must take some account of cutting debrie dust pollution.

Applying comnoz's summary, these instant plugs look a bit on the wise side of best balanced Norton carburated combustion power. Jim's 3D mapped dual fuel nozzles with lightening bolt ignition system may be best example we can expect on long haul Norton plugs with another marathon ride to the low lands this month, ugh, if he's even using hook type plugs anymore. I've been wondering what to do with the bore scope prices dropping so much, seeing all chamber surfaces condition pops to mind now.

So for ordinary ignitions, do we set gaps tighter so no chance of missfires, taking some throttle response off or do we open em up till misfires interrupt and close up till they don't? What's the best aim for hook gap to face, if there is one in swirly hemi Nortons?

Dangerously lean or Picture prefect plugs for us to bench mark on ludwig, do ya suppose your Mt. Olympus life style leaner tune helped keep so nice and new looking. Also do you know if E.U. has better fuel quality control than rough and ready USofA? Details of best current fuel plug chop reference says plugs mostly reveal the last few minutes of operation conditions, either burning off excess or adding on some but not of over all tune during major operation time. I'm strangely ambivalent on which plugs I'd rather see on mine so need more data to decide and wimp out towards darker till then. Shoot with your power to weigh ratio can ya even load engine much to make soot?

These were my plugs after a 1,300 mile tour of France. I was getting more than 60mpg (Imperial gal) two up with luggage, although I wasn't nailing it! Based on Jims comments about

No black pepper flakes or shiny balls that would indicate fast timing or very lean mixture.

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I assume this is what you're talking about?





The carbs that did this have been consigned to my spares pile as I'm now running FCR's.

These are from your 'big un' I guess Reggie?

Do tell us more about the new FCRs old chap, which ones? Where from? And how are they performing?

As I've said previously, although I've yet to Dyno mine, and may find they are out, but seat of the pants riding and looking at my plugs I am amazed at how well my FCRs run out of the box. It is an absolute revelation when I consider how much of my life I've wasted p*ssing around with carbs!!

I got the complete kit from CNW, to the cheapest carb option available, but worth every penny in my book.

At risk of corrupting the thread (sorry) the FCR's are excellent.
I have had some difficulty kicking mine off when cold (no problems when warm/hot) on some occasions, as I'm having to get used to how many throttle twists to give it to enrich the mixture, but it always goes on the starter.

I got my FCR 35's from Holland Norton M/W, with the CNW inlet manifold which Constant opened up to 34mm to match my head free of charge. Costant Trossel,( proprietor of H.N.M.W.) was very helpful and a pleasure to deal with.

Impressions are that it runs cleanly as soon as the engine has been started and they feel very responsive, more so than my Amals, possibly an enhanced impression due to the 70* ish turn quick action throttle to achieve full throttle. The engine drops to tick over and never stalls, although it does "chug" a bit leading me to suspect a slightly rich mixture at tick over but I have been too busy/lazy to look into this as yet. The engne seems to pull slightly more than before when going for high speeds

MPG is 52-58 imperial mpg, plug colour looks good, so I am very pleased.

Like you've suggested, not the cheapest option available, but I'm now hoping that if I achieve another 20+ years of riding the Norton that I won't have any need to change these carbs and that they will need minimal maintenance. Time will tell.
I will have to get the Norton on the dyno as well to see if they can be "improved" on.

ludwig said:

This is how the plugs of my Commando looked like , right after a 4000 km trip this summer (Bosch WR7DC , twin Amal) :

Not a plug chop . I never do that . Just a routine check after coming home .

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First off can I say after reading many of Ludwigs posts on here I rate him as one of the guys who knows what he is doing.

However on this one given these plugs are after a highway trip I would say IMHO this is getting a little too perfect.

Two things concern me. Firstly I think I can see the first sign of peppering on the white electrode indicating the ignition is slightly too advanced. Maybe only 1 or two degrees.

And secondly the very clean burning on the strap is a little too close to the body of the spark plug. Indicating you could go one step colder on the plug.

http://www.dragstuff.com/techarticles/h ... plugs.html

Im thinking that if this bike was pushed hard a full throttle in a race situation you could have problems. Looks slightly too knife edged to me.

In my opinion anyway but again recognising that Ludwig is one of the most knowledgable posters here.

John

ludwig said:

This is how the plugs of my Commando looked like , right after a 4000 km trip this summer (Bosch WR7DC , twin Amal) :

Not a plug chop . I never do that . Just a routine check after coming home .

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Now that is just about as good as it gets for mixture. I am in complete agreement with John. Jim