Quote:
Originally Posted by BlackCat13
Regarding DV comment on this about Champion plugs being down on power and replaced by Autolites:
quote //So the Champion race plugs were pulled and an equivalent heat range of Autolite race plugs installed.
When fired up the motor sounded no less and no more wicked than before but the dyno numbers were – at 142 hp - nothing short of a techno shock. Although a pleasant surprise it was very much a case of ‘what is the world is going on here?’ This was such a surprise that the Champions were re-installed and re-tested. Same killer sound – just 85 hp! Now I have to tell you that in just about every other Mini application Champion plugs were as good as or better than anything we could find but here was an anomaly. This engine apparently did not like anything with Champion written on it.// end quote
A discussion on another forum about this thread's lead-in story says
quote //
" A fouled plug does not recover once it is fouled.....
If you foul a spark plug, you have to install fresh ones. Those plugs are finished. (carbon tracking)
These are racing plugs, they are very very cold, Easy to foul. (especially with flooding. Once fouled , they do not recover. Even cleaning them will not work."// end quote
Is it true that once a plug is fouled it is permanently ruined??
David, do you have any insight into this for us?
Spark plug choice for vortec heads? |
The only comment I have here is that we started and warmed the engine on regular extended nose plugs and then change out to the race plugs ( I have done this a time or too and it is far from my first rodeo) it was not until we had flooded the engine toward the end of our search for the problem (after flooding no attempt to start the engine was made as I was fully aware that in those days cold running plugs fouled easily and would fail to start) that we changed the plugs. However fouling the plugs was not the issue as our Sun scope showed every cylinder (all 4 of them) was firing. Like I said this was something of an anomaly - I have had nothing happen like it before or since!
For what it is worth we have had virtually 100 % success at cleaning race plugs by dropping them in acetone and stiring them around awhile then blowing them off with a 'dry air' air line. I don't know what the poster on the other site was using but by 1966 we were building electronic ignition systems that would fire some pretty disgusting plugs!
DV