I just changed plugs at 25k miles on the truck, 20k since blower install. I didn’t notice any poor performance, but decided to follow Whipple’s plug change interval and take a look. These were gapped 30-32 when I pulled them. I went back with the same type of plug but set the gap at 30.

Would the supercharged guys help me out reading these? This is my first blown gasoline vehicle and I have zero experience in that specific area. Of note, i have run 91/93/e30 on these plugs and they were the plugs used during the tuning process of all three - so I would expect a little extra nasty on them. Thoughts?

If this belongs in the engine sub, let me know and I will move it.

 

It looks like it’s running lean and seeing some detonation. I’d log it and have the tune looked at and gap the plugs down to .028.
I check my plugs at every oil change...they’re so easy to get to there’s no reason to not take a look every so often.

 

Thank you. Detonation is what I was thinking, but hoped I was wrong, heh. I meant to scope the cylinders but can’t put my hands on my scope at the moment. I’ll scope a couple when I find it after seeing some evidence of detonation.

She’s happy now on e30, but I had hell finding decent 93 in my area (Plano, TX). There was plenty of knock, probably both preignition and possibly detonation before I moved to e30.

 

On the plug i can actually see the grounding strap it's running or was running too much timing. And yes, the sprinkling of material is most likely aluminum from detonation.

 

Who’s tuning?

 

For sure. We had hell getting it to take much timing on 91/93 early on (15-20k miles back). I only showed a close-up of one plug because on a positive note, the coloration was consistent across all holes.

 

These plugs have Ford, Whipple, and Oz tuning on them, so I won’t try to say which one did what. I should have checked them much, much sooner.

Early on (first for thousand mines on the blower with the canned tune), the truck was a bit unhappy. I originally reached out to Ken when I was seeing knock retard on my ngauge under load on the highway, especially during passing. I wish I would have reached out sooner.

With a bit of 105 mixed in, zero knock. I have yet to find quality 93 octane, or 91 for that matter, near my house In Plano. After a few revisions, it’s where I want it. I have tow, street, and hot street tunes, and the truck has “felt” and “sounded” happy for the last 15k or so miles.

I’ll circle back in 5k miles with some new plug pics for reference.

edit: Derp. The plugs have no miles with the stock tune.

 

How much timing are you running?

If you don' want to run E30 all the time, then pick up Lucas Octane Booster (LOB) at Walmart and spike your fuel with about a half bottle every tank. Work's out to about an extra $3.75 per tank for about 1.5 extra octane numbers in a 23 gallon tank. I have a whole thread on the subject and Lucas has worked very well in my testing, allowing me to run a full 18.5 degrees of timing on my street tune on 93 pump gas. Without the LOB, I'm seeing retard of about 2-3 degrees with typical 93 octane in my area. If you want something more exotic, then Boostane Professional can be diluted down to about 4 ounces per tank (23g), and will return the same or better results as LOB for about the same cost.

 

Now that I’m back in the states I’m gonna stop at my speed shop tomorrow and see if they have Boostane in stock again.

 

I dig the power on e30, but I end up running the tow tune anytime I am not on the blend. One would think we would have great gasoline all over Texas.

Anywho, I’ll look your thread up and go though it to soak up some knowledge. I remember seeing it a good while back. At the time, it seemed silly to carry octane booster on hand, but that’s before I had the some of the apparently similar experiences. Funny how that works.

Looking back at the logs, I was seeing 4 deg +/- on the 93 in my area.