Sparkplug burn color
 

Guys

My 89 Ragtop (65,000 miles) is starting to smoke white smoke with a bit of a carbon smell. With the gas crunch and the wierd smoke, I thought I'd do a tuneup swaping out the plugs, filters, and oil change.

Once I pulled the plugs, I saw that they were half white and half carbonized. I have enclosed a picture of the plugs and am looking for someone to tell me if they can what's going on with the car and does anyone have a set of plug pictures showing the different types of health of the plugs?

Thanks in advance,
Mike Brouillette
89 Ragtop

That looks pretty normal to me. Get a fresh set snd have fun!

yuck...

What you need to look at is the center insulators. If they are as black (and particularly if wet looking) as the photo shows, you are not getting a good burn of the fuel-oil-air mixture. What you want to see there is a brownish deposit. The deposits on the rest of the plug are not particularly important to the effective operation of the plug, but the white color is very unusual in my experience. Normally, that area of the plug will be dark brown or even flat blackish looking. The white deposits could indicate coolant in the combustion chamber(s). If your coolant is dropping along with the white smoke from the exhaust that is a good bet.

They look normal to me.
If anything they have a little bit too much oil crud, but with stock OMP and certain oils, it's totally normal.

Those plugs look like they have over 20,000 miles on them! :P


-Ted

I have a racing beat exhaust and am noticing a bit of backfire (reminds me of my old 79 rx7 with old style exhaust. Looking at the plugs, do you think I am running a bit rich?

Those look like normal to me too on the aspect that they are probably 20k or more old. I would just put a new set in and then check them after about 5k and see what they look like. Start with a clean slate. Those things could have been in there for years.

These N/A's run rich. Those plugs look worn but normal. These cars also go through a lot of spark plugs. It's just the nature of the beast.