How Does My Spark Plug Look?

[SargeRX8]

Hey well,

Well just for inspection purposes I pulled out the plug from cylinder one. Looks pretty good to me but just wondering if it could be a tad on the lean side as it looks a little too clean. Plugs are more than 6000km old.

My main concern was detonation issues(my other ecu was reading crap load of ping at times, shit tune). Car has been on stock ecu for a fair while, only had the other one in there for a day.

Any input would be great.

These are copper plugs so I'll be changing these with the same ones on next oil change.

Cheers guys

[madbung]

fantastic guy...but how do the other 5 look?

[SargeRX8]

Should I pull them all out? That's a job for tomorrow! If they all look like this guy would that be a good indication of happy motor operating at normal conditions?

[Kinks]

they still look too fresh.. clearly you don't drive your car hard enough

[GODZ1LLA]

Looks spot on. ie bit sutty and a little burning to the tip (perfectly normal on healthy engine) providing the rest look like that, you have no worrys

[SargeRX8]

Well lets bump this up just for comparison purposes. I recently had a few things put on my car(see the rb25 dyno thread). I put this stuff on the car and it was about a month or two before I got it all tuned. Before the tune I pulled the plugs and oil and what not to ensure everything went in fresh. The plugs came out looking just like above, nice and normal.

Anyway got the car back and the problems started. I put the exact same model plugs in, gapped appropriately. 2 of 6 failed after 300km. Look at them now. I just put a brand new set in there because of the misfires and shit that the car has been giving me.

I have no doubt in my mind that this tune is pouring fuel into my engine... I'm going to take it back and I expect not to pay anything more to have it looked at because this is a joke. I'll be chewing through spark plugs everytime I go to fill up a tank of fuel by the looks of it. I'm not impressed at all really and I kind of feel sick to the stomach. I thought I made the right choice in tuner but clearly the tune shows otherwise.

And to note, when the two plugs failed, I replaced them temporarily with the old plugs up in the OP. The picture you see if the old plug up in my original post, it was driven on for about 20km.

[mad082]

ok so others don't have to go looking for mods because you were too lazy to post them i have quoted your post from the dyno section.

you say that the pump was failing during the tune and that you fitted another pump. was that done after the dyno runs? if yes that that is your problem and your fault and not the tuners. your tune was done with a failing pump and you have gone and fitted a working pump which will now be supplying much more fuel (higher pressure) so the injectors will be pumping in extra fuel.

Got my car tuned but its going back soon.

Anyway its an R33 GTST Series 2 with the following:

Unopened RB25DET

HyperGear ATR43SS-2

3" JJR Bellmouth dump

HKS Hi Power Silent exhaust

Yellow jacket coils

NGK Copper plugs BCP7RES gapped to .7

Genuine HDI FMIC

Venom 5" body 100cpsi cat

Nismo 740cc injectors

Bosch 040(was failing during tune)

Nismo FPR

Greddy profec b spec 2

3" metal intake with Apexi power intake filter

Power FC tuned by Advan performance

Made 244rwkw on 11.4psi. That is with the boost controller set to 100%. That is as much as we can get out of it. With about 15psi, we should see about 270rwkw and 17psi about 280rwkw. 20psi should see 300rwkw on regular fuel pump.

Ive fitted a GTR fuel pump in there to fix the fuel pump issues. Probably will swap that with a brand new 040 pump or run it as a lift into a surge tank. Last printed dyno shows about 238rwkw on 11psi, should have printed the previous runs

[SargeRX8]

ok so others don't have to go looking for mods because you were too lazy to post them i have quoted your post from the dyno section.

you say that the pump was failing during the tune and that you fitted another pump. was that done after the dyno runs? if yes that that is your problem and your fault and not the tuners. your tune was done with a failing pump and you have gone and fitted a working pump which will now be supplying much more fuel (higher pressure) so the injectors will be pumping in extra fuel.

When I took the car to the tuner I had no problems with the car. The tuner said it will take him about a day to set everything up and test everything on the car before he tunes. He had to install my new injectors and setup the fuel pressure on the regulator, he asked me what fuel pump I had and I said a 040 and he said ok its all setup correctly to be run in on the dyno. When he was about to start the tune(I was not there at this time) he said the AFR looked strange at low RPM. He said it may be due to surging of the turbo at low RPM and that is nothing to worry about. After the tune was complete he said he is happy with the power it made at the set boost but said it can do with more boost. I took it home the next day and the pump failed. I did not know. He said the fuel pressure was good. The pump was priming. If the pump was failing he should have picked up on it. That is like saying one of my piston rings is worn and I didn't tell him. I payed him $800 to check my cars health and do a tune. He made me pay him to regap my plugs. He made me pay him to fix my PCV valve. He made me pay him to test my fuel. Its a f**king joke that anyone would think its my fault. How was I to know? I drove this car for 8 months without a single fuel related issue. The only real issue was my coils failing on me which I fixed my self. It was only after I told him the pump failed AFTER the tune that he did suspect the pump was failing during the tune.

When you go to a mechanic to fix a problem on your car, its up to them to find the problem based on your input. I told him what the car had, that it was fine. He ran the car on the dyno and say the poor AFR. He could have told me that he suspected the pump is going or it felt lazy rather than continue tuning and take my money.

Another guy on here had his car tuned, payed for it, took it home and it was running rich as shit. He then realized he had something unplugged(which he unplugged him self). He took it back to the tuner and the tuner fixed up the fuel map for free even though this was the car owners fault. I hope for my sake that this tuner will not take me for more money.

Edited July 10, 2011 by SargeRX8

[mad082]

the pump may have been failing by a small enough amount to not seem too bad (lets say 25% down) since all he has to work off is injector rates and every car will run different injector rates with similar mods. once tuned at that rate if a fully operational fuel pump put in it will run rich as hell (since it has just started adding in 25% more fuel). that is not the tuners fault in my opinion.

as for your tuner charging you to do work, that isn't that unreasonable is it? they are doing work, why shouldn't they get paid for it. if it doesn't solve the problem then they can't be blamed for that if they honestly thought it was going to help. often with car problems there can be many different causes so you just have to go through each possibility until it is fixed. sometimes you might get it first go, other times it might take you a day of mucking around. some people will be kind enough to fix stuff for free, especially if it doesn't take them much time to fix or they made a reasonable amount of money off the initial work.

the fact remains though, new pump is the cause of the running rich. had the pump continued working for a year then the tune would've been fine. it essentially is no different to a tune being out because a bigger turbo was fitted.

[SargeRX8]

Do you think the fix could be as simple as adjusting the fuel pressure? If the pressure is set to 43%, how much impact would a fully operational pump have on pressure?

I can understand what you are saying but if I have to pay again for a tune and be out of the car for a week, its about harsh on me, isn't it? I'll be going there tomorrow showing them the plugs and seeing what can be done.

[mad082]

it could be a case of simply dropping the fuel pressure, however it will come down to whether it is rich all over the tune or just up high (which is most likely since the fuel required at low load is bugger all so even a dying pump shouldn't be leaning out at idle). my guess is that only the upper end of the tune will need to be altered and even this shouldn't require too much work, depending on whether they tune with the hand controller or with pc software

and yes i agree with the fact that it isn't really fair if you have to pay for a second tune.

[DVS JEZ]

Hey Sarge i hav to agree 110% with everything mad082 has said about the fuel pump and mechanics in general. Its a process of trial and error in alot of cases. Also agree with him in saying about the fuel pump throwing the tune. But i also know exactly how u feel about paying again.

Im sure if u ask NICELY that advan will help u out in rechecking/setting the AFR's across the board.

Just be sure to be friendly. Don't accuse them and get them off gaurd.

Let us know how u go today.

[SargeRX8]

As polite and kind as I could be, he wants a couple hundred and the whole day to adjust the fuel pressure and tidy the tune on dyno... Is this right?

[DVS JEZ]

Depends how much u paid the 1st time.

Its hard for workshops with overheads etc.

Pm sent

[mad082]

As polite and kind as I could be, he wants a couple hundred and the whole day to adjust the fuel pressure and tidy the tune on dyno... Is this right?

time frame wise it seems reasonable since i'm guessing that just dropping the pressure won't be enough since you still have to maintain a certain amount of pressure, so a lot of it will be redoing the actual tune. money wise i'd compare how much he wants to how much it cost for the initial tune. if it is much lower then i'd say it's reasonable. if it's clsoe to the same cost then possibly not

[SargeRX8]

If you connect your jumper leads to your battery and get a big arc spark, something is draining your battery while the car is off.every morning my car feels sloppy to start, I think its my alarm.