Fast Eddie
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- Oct 4, 2013
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Doesn’t look too lean to me (the plugs shown in post # 1).Leanness of the light plug
Doesn’t look too lean to me (the plugs shown in post # 1).Leanness of the light plug
270 mains, pump gas.Yes it is unleaded pump gas. Thats all we have here in Calif. You just have to have a few miles on them for the color to show.
The "leaness of the light plug" with the speckles shown in the previous thread looks like it could do some damage.
When you read a plug, you look right down inside at the porcelain just before where it meets the metal. There should always be a about a 3mm black ring there where the carbon has not burned off. If you use a hot plug for tuning, you should stay safe. The carbon in a hot plug burns off at a lower combustion temperature. Plugs of different heat ranges conduct heat at different rates. Cold plugs conduct heat quicker. A hoe plug burns the carbon off quicker, so the balck ring disappears at a lower combustion temperature. But if you do most of your riding using less than one-half throttle, the plug readngs might not be a reliable indicator of combustion conditions.I'd just ride the thing if it is running good. The rich one doesn't look like it's in danger of fouling and the lean one doesn't look like it's in danger of detonating.
Yes. Pickup mostly hauls a camper, 9,000 # gross. On long mountain grades it'll be WOT for 10-15 minutes at a time running 2900 RPM 0" vacuum (think I-80 eastbound from Ogden UT to the continental divide. Oil temp will climb to 250 F on hot days, water temp about 210. Ethanol causes it to run lean, altitude saves the day except Imperial Valley, California is at and Death Valley is below sea-level. Climbing out of Death Valley has one of those WOT, 30-minute grades. Oil consumption and down on power started before that but I'm sure it didn't help. I've ridden my Norton over that route but I'm no where near WOT on the grades. I did put an oil cooler on it though.Running lean burning a piston is a very misunderstood phenomenon.
Was that pickup hauling a camper?
Racing, or working very hard is the only way the elevated combustion temperatures can overcome the pistons ability to transfer the heat away.
At Part throttle cruise, LOOOOONG before an engine "burns a piston", that engine will run VERY POORLY, and be way down on power output.
Ethanol mixed fuel doesn't burn pistons, it has less heat value per volume.
Oil cooler on mine as well, for the summer months.Yes. Pickup mostly hauls a camper, 9,000 # gross. On long mountain grades it'll be WOT for 10-15 minutes at a time running 2900 RPM 0" vacuum (think I-80 eastbound from Ogden UT to the continental divide. Oil temp will climb to 250 F on hot days, water temp about 210. Ethanol causes it to run lean, altitude saves the day except Imperial Valley, California is at and Death Valley is below sea-level. Climbing out of Death Valley has one of those WOT, 30-minute grades. Oil consumption and down on power started before that but I'm sure it didn't help. I've ridden my Norton over that route but I'm no where near WOT on the grades. I did put an oil cooler on it though.
I put a pair of temperature gauges with under plug sensors on my bike and ran them for the first time last weekend. Left side hit 200C, right side more like 190C.Doesn't the drive side always run a bit hotter than the timing side?