Ok: a perfectly running motor will produce a chocolate brown plug, right? What do gray deposits indicate with some soot around the edge/rim of the plug?
what does gray mean in general? I am not sure ( because I have leaks, small though) but isn't a grayish tone from burnin' oil? When I rev her up I only get black smoke, no white/blue smoke.

What will a lean plug look like? I think becasue it keeps stalling no matter what, that my carb is either #1: too small, or #2 has too lean of a jet/rod setup in it.

I would also like to know all the possible looks of a plug, color wise, cause I know what oil, and carbon fouled look like.

 

black smoke is an indication of too rich.

 

Not talking about at idle....I mean at WOT. You are going to have some smoke, and at WOT, or with a good rev, it should be sootyish.

 

A correctly tuned engine should have no smoke at all. Like I said in the above response, you are running too rich if you are getting black smoke.

 

mmm, interesting from what I understand at WOT a car should be tuned slightly on the rich side.. hence the slight puff of smoke..

Almost every LS1 or LT1 I see around does that at WOT.. mind you it is just a puff..

 

Yes, to achieve maximum power a car should be tuned slightly on the rich side, but not enough to make it smoke. My LS1 doesn't smoke. I would be kind of worried if it did.

 

Are you ever in a postition to see it on the interstate when you mash the gas? I would be very surprised if it didn't puff a little.. nothing bad though just means that everything is doing its job under load.

I suppose you could ask the person you just blew away

Seriously though, I have a few buddies that are in the 12s and they puff a little when they are on it.. less than a second though just a response to the extra gas dumped into the cylinders.. any more than that, say something continuous I would think tuning is in order..

 

lol, no i havent, but i have been behind it when someone else was revving the engine and i have seen no smoke. I would suspect your buddies need some slight tuning. I could be wrong though. I used to have an 84 olds with a rebuilt carb and that thing ran so rich it would pour black smoke out the back and literally leave soot marks on my driveway, lol. Ive always been under the impression that black smoke meant rich, white smoke meant burning coolant, and blue smoke meant burning oil. Correct me if am wrong though, but a properly tuned car should not smoke at all.

 

I will always defer to the most experience/knowledge.. but as far as I know a properly tuned car under WOT should go slightly rich.. not enough to continuously smoke and foul plugs but enough to create max power.. I can see it on my LT1 with the O2 sensor when the throttle is down it goes from the low end of stoich to the low end of rich.. could be I need some tuning..

The puff should just be the cylinders filling with more air fuel and it being combusted.. the slightly rich mixture caused by the jump to full throttle..under load of course. These cars only do this at the transition from idle or cruise to full throttle.. none of them leave soot or smoke continuously..

Interesting stuff..

 

http://www.eric-gorr.com/techarticles/sparkplugs.html
http://www.buckeye-illinois.com/sparkplugs.htm
Hope this helps...

 

I thought for a while that I was running rich when I got black smoke out of the tail pipe (enough to leave soot on the pavement)... However, it turned out that my timing was retarded... When I revved it hard, lots of black smoke... Just my experience... I am running rich (still trying to sort that out), but the big black smoke problem i was having turned out to be timing...