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Headers glowing at idle.

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Old May 15, 2003 | 05:23 PM
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From: ELIZABETH,PA,USA
Headers glowing at idle.

car seems to run and drive excellent. Wideband A/F is 14.7 at idle,blms are 128ish still.
Timing is showing 25 at idle with light . I thought I had it all ironed out,the car is running great right now,excellent response
Smooth driving ,pulls real hard.!!!
But after about 1-2 minutes at idle they start glowing again.
Not as bad ,but still getting hot.
Can't figure it out,I also see few wires arcing - mind you these are brand new wires installed after I started having the glow problem.
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Old May 17, 2003 | 11:40 AM
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From: Philly, PA
If you got wires arcing you need to fix it. Crossfires and incomplete ignition can cause glowing headers.

Have you tried unplugging the timing wire and verifying the true base timing is correct? Shooting a timing light at a mark that's way off the top of the scale is a really dicey proposition. I've tried it may times and still never gotten close to doing it the right way.
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Old May 17, 2003 | 01:12 PM
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Car: 81Malibu
Engine: SBC 355
Transmission: TH400
could be...
*not enough timeing
*valvs adjusted to tite

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Old May 17, 2003 | 05:44 PM
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From: ELIZABETH,PA,USA
[QUOTE]
Shooting a timing light at a mark that's way off the top of the scale is a really dicey proposition.
Not sure I know what you mean there..

Yes I have tried w/esc disconnected - 6 degrees,and I have prom set to 25.
As far as the incomplete ignition,I know But I tightened up plug gap thinking it was too big,wires are brand new..replaced them cause last set was doing same thing.
I guess I am going to go over valves again,Ive never overtightened last 100 times,but im out of options here.

Thanks for help.
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Old May 17, 2003 | 05:58 PM
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From: north plainfield, nj
Car: 05' GTO
Engine: 6.0L
Transmission: A4
maybe theres some way its not gettin the right amount of fuel? maybe bad fuel filter?

also on my friends 87 gta he had a problem where his headers would glow when he was at like 2000rpms for a sort time. turned out the accel super coil he had was bad. he got it replaced with a stock replacement borgwarner and the headers stopped glowing. have ur coil checked.

im just thinkin of the small things before u go rippin into the motor.
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Old May 18, 2003 | 12:40 PM
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Stock chips only supply a total of about 24* of timing advance at idle- that's including the 6* initial (about 18* in the chip). Maybe try backing it down some in the chip (if you can burn another yourself easily)?

I agree on checking the valve lash. If you're hanging an exhaust valve open slightly you will get glowing headers (plus a rather rough idle, usually). Hang an intake and it'll be much more obvious something is wrong.
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Old May 18, 2003 | 05:17 PM
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Thx for reply damon,I do my own proms..
Backing the timing off will only make it worse I think. Yeah I still have to check the valves,But I could not see me adjusting all of them wrong. Ive never done so before and think it would be hard to do all 8 wrong.
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Old May 19, 2003 | 04:52 PM
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Only reason I suggest is that if you over-advance you start trying to run the engine backwards almost, and it requires actually opening the throttle further to hold idle RPMs, added heat, misifres and incomplete combustion occur, and the whole thing cycles downwards into problems. I'm basically going from my expereince with more basic carbureted systems that use mechanical distributors, etc, but the theory might still be valid applied to an FI system. Motor doesn't know it's computer controlled.

31* actual total at idle seems a bit much (6* initial+ 25* computer-supplied) in my expereince.

Last edited by Damon; May 19, 2003 at 04:56 PM.
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Old May 21, 2003 | 04:04 AM
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glowing headers at idle is usually too little timing or too much fuel... If your sure about your timing then I'd be looking at fuel, but that does seem a little high for idle timing advance...
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Old May 21, 2003 | 05:27 PM
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From: ELIZABETH,PA,USA
Well I have had the timing back down to 25 total for a while now... And since have disabled closed loop fuel correction and leaned the car out to where the headers do not glow.
The only problem is that my o2 reads soo lean that it scares me,but as grumpy says "give the engine what it likes,not what the sensors like" So I have been running this way and all seems well with the headers.
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