Wondering if the gold piston experienced more heat and discolored the aluminum.

 

Yeah that’s what I’m thinking. Possibly slightly lean… this is what I was saying about the engine not being tuned very well… needs to be perfect if you want it to hold together.

 

So, I was enlightened today by Adam at ZFG.

We are having some issues with spark plugs and gap, and spark blowout.

I had them gapped to .026 before, then went to .024 but that wasn’t enough.
Power was falling on its face at 4000 Rpms and up, and so Adam said to gap the plugs at .020

So this morning I did that and logged a pull later this evening and it pulled hard all the way to 6000 rpm, but as soon as it got up there it was hesitating and stumbling and then I heard pinging, not just once but a whole bunch. I immediately let out of it because I knew that sound, that was knock.

Mentioned all that to Adam and he said that it was not knock. He said on the ecoboosts it’s almost impossible to hear knock, it would have to pull 10+ degrees of timing for you to hear it.

The sound I heard was spark blowout. When the pressures in the cylinder are too high that the spark struggles or can’t cross the gap, and a tighter gap is needed.

“Spark blowout occurs when the spark plug fails to ignite the air-fuel mixture in the engine cylinder, often due to high compression or boost. It's not that the spark is literally "blown out," but rather that the spark is unable to form and jump across the gap due to the increased pressure and dielectric strength of the compressed gases.”

 

Try the other plugs and see if the indexing helps with spark blowout.

 

I got spark blowout with those ones too, heard it on several different occasions. But I am going to try some new oem ones gapped tighter to like .020 and see what that does.

 

Did sync update? This is a different style logo on my big screen. This is the first time I’ve ever seen it like that.

 

Yeah, you got a new sync update

 

Hey - you’ve also got a blank / unused button above that screen. Doesn’t that bug you?

 

No, it does not. Maybe I should make that be the nitrous button?

 

Oh, oh,oh,oh, you mean SC Rambler saw plenty of these in the Kenosha AMC lot.

OK Matt what you are thinking is more in line with a "Transformer" switch?!?! KM

 

Scramble buttons can be used for different things. You can increase timing, turn nitrous on or an extra kit, increase boost. Just depends on the setup you have.

 

Very true, usually on turbo cars it means boost is allowed to go higher than your tune allows. Would cool if one had a built motor and ran a conservative 750hp tune, then you could push the scramble button and have 1000

 

I had a friend that had a Saleen Mustang with a Turbonetics turbo set up that had a box that you could mount in the vehicle in a convenient place. It had a dial on it that you could rotate and boost increase was almost instantaneous. That 5.0 liter would scream. For all intents and purposes, it was what has been described here.

 

So, I had my spark plugs gapped to .020 as you guys know and still got spark blowout. So, probably going to upgrade to the Granatelli Motorsport coil packs

 

I hope you have much better luck than other's I know have used his stuff in the past. TIFWIW.

 

I need y’all’s opinions.

Going to get Toyo Proxes ST3 tires but trying to figure out what size I should do.

I had 285/45/R20 on my old truck, those were 30.5” tall. I don’t really want to do 30” again because it definitely looked small in the wheel well.

I’m thinking 285/50/R20 - 31.3”
Or 305/50/R20 - 32”

im leaning 305s since they’ll be wider, 12.4” to be exact and would look better. They will still fit on a factory 8.5” wide wheel.

what do you guys think?

happy memorial day

 

You need more width for a better launch, right? If so go with wider tires.

 

Normally yes, but I think when it comes to price, and worry about them fitting, and the fact that the 285s are slightly shorter, I’d rather have the 285s they are still 11.7” wide

 

305s if think since you’re down the path of go big or go home.

Unless the weight penalty is huge.

I think they should fit on stock wheels, as 315s (10mm wider) fit on raptor wheels (10mm less positive offset), but nonetheless would do some research to insure that width clears the UCA on stock wheels.

 

305s if think since you’re down the path of go big or go home.

Unless the weight penalty is huge.

I think they should fit on stock wheels, as 315s (10mm wider) fit on raptor wheels (10mm less positive offset), but nonetheless would do some research to insure that width clears the UCA on stock wheels.

Hmmm, good point… I’m not sure. The weight difference between 305s and 285s is 3 lbs.

 

A 295-55 r20 would be 32.8" which is pretty close to your stock diameter of 33", and fill the wheel wells nicely, but it'd be 1.2" wider. I went with the toyo open country at3 in stock size because the contact patch is actually over an inch wider than the stock tires even though they're the same width.

 

Stock diameter is still like 32 is inches. My tires are not stock diameter, they’re bigger. I also have a 2” leveling spacer that I will remove once I do the new tires. And I’ll also do a 1” lowering shackle on the back so that it sits level. I removed the rear blocks already.

 

I found Toyo Proxes 305/50/R20 for 168$ per tire on Walmart.com and ordered them.

Also, was chatting with @SrpRacing and he jogged my memory again about the methanol injection. @GearHead_1 you mentioned the oem plugs and indexing, and that also got me thinking, but then I realized that we had some spark blowout on the oem plugs when they were indexed too. But… I had almost no blowout before I started using methanol.

I think I need to swap to the smaller nozzle and see what that does. If we keep getting blowout, I’m ditching the meth kit.

 

That’s weird, which nozzle you have now ? Keep me posted was going to install methanol also after tutbo upgrade but if thats the case will not bother

 

305/s get my vote ---- not that I run them or anything, just my vote... Lol

 

I ordered 305s don’t worry

 

Traction bars came in. Waiting on tires now, then I’ll make an appointment to get them mounted, I’ll also have them do an alignment since I’m taking off the leveling spacers. Then I’m going to get a 1” drop shackle for the back.

 

I had to go onto VAS's website as the bag didn't look like it had heim joints in it at first glance lol. But I can clearly see them now.

 

By the way, I find it pretty interesting, that even though I moved my backup sensors, they still work just fine and the truck does not freak out.

 

Toyo Proxes 305/50/R20 are here!

also got my traction bars on!

 

Nice tires ,will probably looking at ordering those traction bars also soon , and did you ever figure out your spark blowout?

 

That was what my concern has been. while the threaded end "reach" looks correct the tapered seat sits lower into the head than the flat washered seat. KM

 

I know, I agree, but I don’t think it sits as deep as you think…. However, even just the slightest of difference could affect things.

 

I think the tapered seat is about 1/8 an inch deep. Honestly I was more concerned with contacting the piston crown, glad that did not happen! One of the ongoing complaints for Ecoboost is poor ignition, now with your experience maybe the 3.5s just have more turbulence in the combustion chamber. That would explain Ford going with indexing plugs.
Any luck finding a colder than stock gasket-ed seat plug? KM

 

I think the tapered seat is about 1/8 an inch deep. Honestly I was more concerned with contacting the piston crown, glad that did not happen! One of the ongoing complaints for Ecoboost is poor ignition, now with your experience maybe the 3.5s just have more turbulence in the combustion chamber. That would explain Ford going with indexing plugs.
Any luck finding a colder than stock gasket-ed seat plug? KM

I don’t think the plugs would contact the piston obviously haha, because ford don’t change the heads at all from Gen 2 in respect of the spark plug holes, they just started running different plugs.
NGK has some crush washer plugs I might try. Tomorrow’s chore is to put my oem crush washer plugs back in gapped to .022 and then I’ll try the same tune and see if I get blowout with those. I’m also going to compare the crush washer plugs to the non crush washer plugs more in depth.

 

I’ve got one sitting in my glove box if your to measure it if you’ve got a new style plug to compare to.

 

I’ve got some 2” drop shackles for the rear coming now. As soon as I remove the front leveling spacers that’s on the truck right now, I know I’m gonna want the back end to match.

 

Just comparing an old plug to the crush washer plug. You can see the crush washer plug doesn’t reach quite as far. I lined up the two plugs so that the bottom of the crush washer was in line with the top of the seat on the seated plug.

In this pic you can see the crush washer plug doesn’t extend as far as the seated one does, into the boot

 

Why does the tapered plug look like it has carbon tracking?

 

Because it does. That plug didn’t come out of my truck, funny thing, I actually found it on the floor underneath some junk in the garage.

 

I know it’s tantalizing… I was trying to get an idea of what they will look like… and dang I am so excited!

 

Going to look great...... I need to see them on and I need your thoughts on the road and off road in the gravel. No pressure, but depends on what you say and experience, and I might pull the trigger