I put in a Screamin Demon coil not to long ago. changed the wires and plugs. the plugs are NGK iridium IX
they recommend opening the gap to .065. i went to .060 to be safe.

i just pulled one out just to see how it looked and the center is discolored red.

why is this? whats going on? what should i do?

 

i took a pic, poor quality but any feedback on this would be great.

 

Holy crap... it is red!

That's weird, I've never seen anything like that happen to a spark plug.

Maybe it's a characteristic of the plug's metal? Or something in the gas is turning it red due to a chemical reaction?

 

ya thats what im saying. it had my teacher stumped. but he did say possibly chemical reaction, that maybe the gap was too large and it wasnt getting a good spark to burn off all the gas.

 

Try resetting the gaps to say, .050"-.055" and running that for a while to see if it goes away.

Maybe the gap is just too much and the Screamin' Demon folks offered up .065" as a general recommendation... which as we all know doesn't mean it's right for every vehicle.

Best I can offer... I'm just as stumped as your teacher, lol. If I remember, I'll ask my instructor when I go to class tonight. He did lots of circle track racing, maybe he knows exactly what causes that and what to do to fix it. So if you want to wait until later tonight (10-11 Eastern time) I'll get back to you on what he said about it.

 

ive read somewhere that red is just from additives in lower quality gasoline.

 

that would make sense since i pretty much had them for all of winter and i had had a few tanks of bad gas and poor mileage but the next tank is always good afterwards and gets 18 19mpg so i just figured bad gas.

ya ask you instructor. mine just says why would you do that? why would you upgrade, its all business, you dont gain anything. stock is the best you can get and that whole lecture. lol

 

Well, the stock Ford coil pack on our 3.0's are great until you start adding boost. For a stock N/A 3.0, stock Ford coil packs will still offer as good better performance overall compared to most of the aftermarket. I'm fairly sure a Jacobs Electronic Ignition or MSD Ignition kit would be better than the stock coil pack, and probably is much better than any aftermarket quickie bolt on coil pack.

 

ya i needed to replace mine and it was slightly less expensive. i heard good things about it so i figured why not. think ill back off the gap alittle down to .050 like you suggested. see where that gets me.

and ya i had a vision of putting on a msd ignition but havent gotten to it meaning no moola for it yet

 

what does the rest of the plug look like? is it rust? does it wipe off or is imbedded?

are the other plugs like that?

 

the rest of the plug lookes normal. no rust on it. some dielectric grease on the other end so its very clean. there only a few months old. (installed sometime last winter/late fall) the red is like a discoloration. its somewhat on the grounding strap as well.

 

are the other plugs like that?

 

oops missed that question.
yea well i took one more out to see if it was and it was the same thing.

 

Didn't they teach you in quick-lane? gosh dang in man
Red to purple deposits on one side of the core nose are an indication of a fuel additive. Some additives and detergents in fuels may no be fully compatible with ignition systems and do not contain conductive materials such as octane boosters that can do harmful damage to your spark plugs.

 

this is all the way around the core nose? think it could still be an additive though.
i havent seen any loss in performance, skipping, missing, or antyhing of the sort.

and no they dont teach me anything in quicklane. heres a wrench now get to it! hah

 

holy redness