Ram Air Causing Fouled Spark Plugs And Fast Idle

[Vettehead Mikey]

The ridicule stems from your backyard approach to diagnostics and when we comment with valid and positive opinions you totally ignore it and repeat the same ideology without any acknowledgment of what was just suggested!

Exactly. The claims of increased power, decreased fuel consumption and the cause of the choke issue all being attributed to your hood arrangement wouldn't pass the scrutiny of high school physics students, never mind a graduate mechanical engineer.

Despite my having performed tests that determine real life carb inlet temps, a test that you yourself cannot be bothered doing, you repeatedly dismiss them and continue to quote your own made up numbers, as ridiculous as they might be.

Between that and the irresponsible recommendation to run tires at dangerously low pressures, it's no wonder people get on his case.

Yes, this has all driven lots of traffic to the C3 section- but do we really need this kind of garbage?

 

[Antz81]

Despite my having performed tests that determine real life carb inlet temps, a test that you yourself cannot be bothered doing, you repeatedly dismiss them and continue to quote your own made up numbers, as ridiculous as they might be.

I'm not that good at knowing how hot something is in *f but once i did the conversion to *c i realised how ridiculous his claimed temps were. Most of the plastic under the hood would melt. Including the insulation on the wiring.

 

[toobroketoretire]

Better Quality Than AC Delco

I am pleased my new Standard HEI cap and rotor are better quality than the AC Delco parts I have used in the past. The HEI cap has brass terminals and the rotor has 1/4" hex-head screws. These new parts should easily last 100,000 miles so I won't have to replace them any time soon. With replacement parts often being so bad now days it's nice to see some of them are actually better than OEM.

With almost 1-7/16" of clearance between my HEI and the air cleaner base that problem is solved. As big blocks produce so much torque it's hard to detect a misfiring cylinder especially if an automatic transmission is used because the fluid coupling absorbs the shock of a missing cylinder. Had it not been for the unusual exhaust sound and reduced fuel mileage I may not have known anything was amiss. And as I had installed an H pipe not long ago my exhaust pulses are shared in the two mufflers; making a dead cylinder even harder to know about. Glad it had a happy ending.

 

[Antz81]

I am pleased my new Standard HEI cap and rotor are better quality than the AC Delco parts I have used in the past. The HEI cap has brass terminals and the rotor has 1/4" hex-head screws.

Weather or not having brass terminals is an advantage is debatable. But there is advantages to having brass. While having a lower conductivity, it is a harder metal and should last better.

Hex-head screws is interesting. While I've never had a problem with the delco philips screws I would prefer a hex.

Would be interesting to see how they last. Might be worth using Standard for the cap and rotor next time I need to change mine.

 

[kpic]

Weather or not having brass terminals is an advantage is debatable. But there is advantages to having brass. While having a lower conductivity, it is a harder metal and should last better.

Exactly correct.

"Perhaps the most interesting fact revealed by this chart is how low most copper alloy materials rank in relative conductivity. One might easily assume that alloys such as the brasses and bronzes, because they are mainly copper, are nearly as conductive as copper. This is not the case. The small percentages of tin, aluminum, nickel, zinc and phosphorus that make up these alloys degrade the electrical performance of the resulting alloy to a far greater percentage than their compositional percentage in the alloy.

One should not conclude from this, however, that brass should never be used in electrical applications. There are instances where the superior tensile and machining characteristics of brass make it a better choice than copper as long as the sectional areas are increased proportionately to achieve the conductivity that a copper part would have in the application. Size for size, however, copper is exceeded only by silver among the materials commonly used for electrical applications."

Electrical Conductivity of Materials - Blue Sea Systems

As it is used on circuit boards and high frequency applications; the easiest mistake to make is gold is more conductive than silver.

"The most electrically conductive element is silver, followed by copper and gold. Silver also has the highest thermal conductivity of any element and the highest light reflectance. Although it is the best conductor, copper and gold are used more often in electrical applications because copper is less expensive and gold has a much higher corrosion resistance. Because silver tarnishes, it is less desirable for high frequencies because the exterior surface is less conductive.
As to why silver is the best conductor, the answer is that its electrons are more free to move than those of the other elements."
What Is the Most Conductive Element?

 

[Vettehead Mikey]

I'm not that good at knowing how hot something is in *f but once i did the conversion to *c i realised how ridiculous his claimed temps were. Most of the plastic under the hood would melt. Including the insulation on the wiring.

Living next door to the US with 10x the population, it's pretty much mandatory to understand the F* system as much as we'd like to forget it.

We also need to remember Imperial measure for liquid and dry goods, and also that US liquid measure is different than Imperial liquid measure.

1L = 35.19506 oz. Imperial = 33.81402 oz. USA :ugh

 

[dougelam]

I am pleased my new Standard HEI cap and rotor are better quality than the AC Delco parts I have used in the past. The HEI cap has brass terminals and the rotor has 1/4" hex-head screws. These new parts should easily last 100,000 miles so I won't have to replace them any time soon. With replacement parts often being so bad now days it's nice to see some of them are actually better than OEM.

With almost 1-7/16" of clearance between my HEI and the air cleaner base that problem is solved. As big blocks produce so much torque it's hard to detect a misfiring cylinder especially if an automatic transmission is used because the fluid coupling absorbs the shock of a missing cylinder. Had it not been for the unusual exhaust sound and reduced fuel mileage I may not have known anything was amiss. And as I had installed an H pipe not long ago my exhaust pulses are shared in the two mufflers; making a dead cylinder even harder to know about. Glad it had a happy ending.

After working on literally hundreds of vehicles with HEI ignition systems the only component that failed at a high rate was the rotor. The material that transfers the high voltage is a none issue, the only difference under the hood is whether or not it is exposed to the elements. Secondary ignition cables, good ones that is, seal the voltage in and the elements out.
Point is I've seen caps with well over 100 thousand miles and past 10 years old on them and still worked just fine.
As a matter of fact the resistance in the wires and spark plugs will more than negate the milli ohms in the aluminum inserts that the OEM used!

Now as for the air filter base being too close to the distributior that our resident engineer chose to move it instead of repairing the real problem. On a engine with everything in good working order the system WILL NOT leak voltage from the coil tower OR spark plug boots... Notice I said "good working order"

Just one more "splice" to this thread

Sent from my SM-T530NU using Tapatalk

 

[toobroketoretire]

By modifying my choke housing to use manifold vacuum to force the choke butterfly OPEN my fast idle and plug fouling problems stopped. Sometimes it just takes American ingenuity to solve a perplexing problem.

 

[Antz81]

By modifying my choke housing to use manifold vacuum to force the choke butterfly OPEN my fast idle and plug fouling problems stopped. Sometimes it just takes American ingenuity to solve a perplexing problem.

I thought you said that the misfire was causing the fouling problem. Which is it???

 

[Vettehead Mikey]

By modifying my choke housing to use manifold vacuum to force the choke butterfly OPEN my fast idle and plug fouling problems stopped. Sometimes it just takes American ingenuity to solve a perplexing problem.

I'm becoming convinced you post this stuff just to wind people up. You didn't solve a problem, just put a band-aid on it.

 

[kpic]

I thought you said that the misfire was causing the fouling problem. Which is it???

It's to the point where it makes a sine wave appear to be straight.

I'm becoming convinced you post this stuff just to wind people up.

I'm beginning to lean in the same direction.

You didn't solve a problem, just put a band-aid on it.

Ditto.

 

[dougelam]

By modifying my choke housing to use manifold vacuum to force the choke butterfly OPEN my fast idle and plug fouling problems stopped. Sometimes it just takes American ingenuity to solve a perplexing problem.

That's funny, there's probably hundreds or thousands but most likely hundreds of thousands or maybe millions.

NO WAIT after over 80 years and billions of cars with choke blades on them someone finely came up with a solution for fouled spark plugs!

After all these years of being able to fix perplexing problems I find out that I didn't have American ingenuity because I fixed it right the correct way!

Shit I could have just cobbled it, now I know

Sent from my SM-T530NU using Tapatalk

 

[Antz81]

It's to the point where it makes a sine wave appear to be straight.

I thought we were talking about fouled spark plugs...

Or do you think the real source of his problems could be in the alternator???

 

[kpic]

I thought we were talking about fouled spark plugs...

Or do you think the real source of his problems could be in the alternator???

I thought it was Ram Air causing the plug to foul?

I believe you've found the problem. The alternator charges the battery which caused the spliced plug wire to short.