My car is shooting sparks!!

[tferrellsn95]

I did try a search on this topic but i couldn't find one. I made 3 really hard passes tonight. On the last one my car died on the 1-2 up shift somewhere around 6500 rpm. I was power shifting (I usually don't) but this is the first time this has happened. My flagman says it popped then threw sparks. I have a mild set up (331 P heads, Performer intake, X cam) stock tune on 13 degrees base. I use a pretty cold NGK plug as i spray it from time to time. I thought maybe the cold plugs were the cause. Possible?

 

[Rice_slayer]

Wow wow... You have a cammed 94 GT STROKED with different heads on a stock tune?!?!?!?!?! Get that on a dyno and tuned ASAP, or else look at replacing that engine. They couldn't even pull a base dyno pull on my car with a simple HCI swap on a stock bottom end 302 because the A:F ratio spiked way too lean.

 

[tferrellsn95]

LOL yea.. I get similar responses like that all the time. i bumped fuel pressure a little. i've had it dyno'd before. made a whopping 285 hp and 345 tq.. lol The owner of the dyno said i was WAYYYYY off. I hooked up to a 5 gas analyzer and it showed 19-20:1. with tons of Hydra-carbons. I figured this was cause of the cam overlap.

 

[Rice_slayer]

Thats a case of a very bad a:f ratio, it should never be that high. I made 270rwhp on a trickflow HCI on a stock 230000km bottom end on a mustang dyno. Get that thing tuned cause that is the problem, or as I said, invest in a new motor . And fuel pressure has nothing to do with it, the stock computer has set parameters, it won't recognize the extra air flow properly, thus, making the car run like sh*t. It's the beauty and horrors of building a more "modern" set-up vs. an old carb set-up with almost 0 PCM input.

 

[ttocs]

wish I could lol at this one but idunno......

 

[Musturd]

LOL yea.. I get similar responses like that all the time. i bumped fuel pressure a little. i've had it dyno'd before. made a whopping 285 hp and 345 tq.. lol The owner of the dyno said i was WAYYYYY off. I hooked up to a 5 gas analyzer and it showed 19-20:1. with tons of Hydra-carbons. I figured this was cause of the cam overlap.

Why even do a full out dyno pass on it with out a tune? P heads is a good reason why it's making less then 300 rwhp to start

 

[Saint]

Why even do a full out dyno pass on it with out a tune?

+1

or shoot sparks again.

 

[rz5.0]

Your nuts. Your going to blow it up...

 

[Musturd]

Your nuts. Your going to blow it up...

He may have already

 

[rz5.0]

Very true... will it start?

 

[tferrellsn95]

Yea. im just trying to find a good place sorta close to home. The guy close to home has a SO-SO rep. I had it dyno'd about 2 years ago when i first got everything together and was curious. I doesn't add up for me to spend the $450 on a questionable tune when my 393 is finally finished and ill pay that again to tune it.

 

[ProKiller]

i'm going to say the sparks weren't sparks but molten piston ring pieces flying out the tailpipes. or maybe melted spark plug pieces. I hate to say this but i think its time to be painfully blunt. you have a larger than stock displacement with barely better than stock heads on there with a large cam and intake that only revs to like 5500. you then chose to forgo the only safety feature you have i.e. a tune and then chose to rev the hell out of it on a racing situation after most likely hot lapping it. this is classic stupidity almost as bad as thinking the NOS energy drink goes in a fuel tank.

after you figure out how much it will cost to fix the damage you just caused do the following:
get better heads, get a better intake, get a tune.

 

[ttocs]

wait then......... sparks = bad?!

 

[Mustang Mark]

wait then......... sparks = bad?!

only when they come from somewhere other than your spark plugs.

 

[Musturd]

450 or full rebuild new motor etc you do the math ... If I build a car for my customers and they don't want to to tune it there's a 15 minute or 15ft warranty and that's that... I cant imagine anyone building a stroker to be so careless..

I bet when the 393 is done you'll rat bag it a bunch before tuning....
There's so many ignorant people on here who get all sad when there shit blows up 20:1 A/F are you on crack you could have atleast had a wide band

 

[ttocs]

didn't need one the tuner said he was waaaaaay off....

 

[rz5.0]

Dont want to pay... Tune it your self...

 

[Rice_slayer]

Dont want to pay... Tune it your self...

Unless you have the thousands of dollars of software/hardware/dynometer to do it, Joe blow can't tune his own car, hell, even myself being a Ford Technician can't tune my Mach 1 with the tools at the dealership. Modern OBDI and OBDII cars NEED tunes to run properly. I drove my old 302 untuned for 5~ months, and never really went balls to the walls with it, I took it to 5k twice, and that was it, didn't feel like blowing it up lol.

 

[94svtturbo]

^overselling it.



It wont cost you thousands of dollars, and you don't neccassarily have to use a dyno. But even if wanted someone can always rent one. As far as "Joe blow" tuning it, as long as they understand how the pcm operates they can adjust accordingly

 

[rz5.0]

Man there is people tuning there own shit everywere... Im was tuning mine but swich my set up so after im done intalling my vortec. Im going to be back at it with a 120 dollar sofware, 200 dollar laptop, 170 wideband, 240 chip, and all my free time...