Sparkplugs

[Mark S]

Hi folks.

I finished putting the engine to bed for the winter yesterday, the last task being to remove the sparkplugs and squirt MMO into the cylinders. This set of plugs was installed in May and lasted the entire summer. Last spring, I removed the points and condenser ignition and replaced it with the Ignitor electronic ignition. On removal and examination yesterday, each plug showed a black dust, somewhat darker than the perfect gray ash, but not fouled by any means. This is in great contrast to the plugs I removed last fall which were greasy and fouled.

That this year's plugs had black rather than gray ash I attribute to the engine running very cool, and I predict that next season, when operating temperatures can be established within the proper temperature range, the ash will be the perfect gray. I can't think of any better proof of the superiority of electronic ignition.

Mark

[marthur]

It is not uncommon for some soot to build up on the plugs, especially when running at idle. I have found that tweaking the low speed mixture helps a lot with that, even though my engine tends to run on the cool side (130-145 degrees).