I had a guy tell me yesterday that there were some sparks coming from my exhaust. Im not sure if there really was or not but if so what could it be? This was on 175 shot and the car still runs good. The exhaust is some pacesetter headers which are fairly rusted and a lanes performance true dual system.

 

pull your plugs and check em. If they are fine your probably fine.

 

What he said. My guess plug electrodes went out the exhaust....

 

Would it still be running good if the electrodes came off the plugs?

 

It could run decent but you would likely feel some stumbles and missing if the plugs are seriously FUBAR. Just pull and check em....If they are ok it was probably just some carbon flying out the exhaust.

 

I have lost a tip or two and only noticed a rough idle. The LS1 ignition is pretty good to cover that stuff up. I have also destroyed plugs and had misfires as well.

As long as it didnt take a portion of the valve and seat with it...your good. But Id pull em and check em. If they are burned...you have 8 lives left....lol. Thats about as close as you can get without some serious damage. Youll need to adress the underlying issue.

 

Yeah, i've actually melted a plug into the head before, launched, hit 2nd and immediately after boom and a big flame under the hood, immediately shut her down, was expecting to see a blown up intake at the end of the track when I lifted the hood off, but nothing, so my buddy told me to start her back up and drive her back to the trailer, started fine, idled perfect, goosed her a little on the way back and sounded perfect, got back pulled all the plugs and found #1 was melted into the threads, had to crank the **** out of it to get it out and then had to pull the head to get the hole fixed, needless to say that plug was fubared to all hell, yet it still ran great, hahaha!!! It actually has me paranoid now, I always put fresh plugs in before goin to the track to hit a big shot (just something I do, makes me feel safe, usually do the same with the oil too), but now even if I only hit a small shot i'm so paranoid cuz of how good it ran with one burnt that i'm constantly pullin the plugs to make sure they're all still intact.

 

Couldn't the glowing debris at open throttle under nitrous be any carbon build up within the combustion chamber or early exhaust breaking free and shooting out while being super heated? Considering the nature of spray I can understand wondering if it is molten engine parts but to me, exiting red hot carbon deposits seems logical too.

 

Ive been waiting for a thread like this. Ive melted a total of 4 plugs at different times. The car seems to run just fine. I can never tell when its happened. If really freaks me out because i can never tell when it happens. Im in the process of figuring out why it happens because it cant be normal. I have a thread on this and some of the guys are pointing at possible weak valve springs causing valve event to be off and detonation. I really hope thats not the case. I just had the heads off.

 

We had a fair amount of "exhaust sparking" on one of our sprayed motors. Turned out to be bits of the piston being blown out. Several of the piston tops were very very pitted.

 

yep..when detonation happens it has effects on so many components. Sometimes it will make "pits" in the cylinder tops...or even the quench area of the cylinder head. Its very odd looking. Looks like impact marks from a sharp object. Many assume something went through the cylinder chewing it up....but its just detonation.

 

The plugs all looked good, they didnt look like there was much detination at all.

 

ok...so the plugs looked good. Thats a good thing.

Is this a clutch car...I have also had sparks fly out of the bellhousing launching with scintered mettalic type clutches.

But if your plugs are perfect...your probably ok.

Also...you can get fireballs out the exhuats on shifts if you have some fuel delay (oppositie of the lean spike) or are just rich in general. Nothing really wrong with that either.

 

Yes its an M6 with a ls7 clutch.. I logged the runs and it was showing a little under 2 degrees of knock.

 

Did he say when he saw sparks? During shifts....at the top of the track...on launch...etc?

Your probably ok though.

 

It was on the street from a slow roll when I first hit it.