Im breaking in a 331 stroker ford motor I had built, after about 5 min. of running at 2000 rpm. I noticed the pasenger side header was glowing. I checked the temp with a heat gun. driver side was about 450 degrees, pasanger was over 800.<p> <p> THINGS I HAVE ALREADY TRIED<p> 1.checked timing to 11 degrees<p> 2. tried another carb<p> 3.re-jetted the holly carb from 67 jets to 73<p> 4.cried<p> 5. I checked head temp at freezeplugs on both sides. they were both at about 175. so I dont think I have a blocked water passage.<p> 6. the manifold is a duel plane.<p> 7. I have a air fuel monitor in the driverside (cool side) it says its running very rich. <p> ANYONE HAVE ANY IDEAS?????
Try installing the A/F meter on the passenger side exhaust at the header collector and see what it tells you about the mixture. Check the plugs in all the cylinders and see if there is any tell tale of leanness on the passenger bank. Because the motor is not under load it is not very indicative of how it will operate when given a load like driving. To break it in you should be loading it any way (after initial cam break in as I assume you are doing right now). 800 F is not very hot and 450 F is basically not running at all, when speaking about the engine being under load, but you are reading them at idle, so there could be some sort of weird eddy or vortex being generated at that given RPM with your induction set up etc. I would make sure both nozzles are working on you carb, that the fuel is actually being dispensed in each venturi. You could have a clog in the main jet, the emulsion tube, or maybe one of your idle passages is plugged, as they tend to provide fuel quite a way into the RPM range when there is no load, i.e. low vacuum signal at the nozzle. What carb are you using, that info could help us a bit. Mike
adjustable rockers? Might be a little too tight on the hot side, keeping exhaust valves from closing fully.
The hokey way is to run it up, spray wd-40 around the base of the carb, then the intake to head see if it clears it up
Now THAT'S a man that has scratched his head for a day, and ended up saying "WTF!" After all these good ideas, i would definitely run the valves again to be sure. also check for vacuum leak.
Anybody ever turned a carb around backwards for troubleshooting purposes on something like this? Pretty easy to do with some carbs, if you've got rubber fuel and vacuum lines. And before anybody points out that the accelerator linkage won't work, I don't recall that I've ever broken in a cam from the drivers seat.
Has the head on that side been milled before? Or maybe just a slipped (or missing),,gasket Sounds like the intake is leaking badly on the right bank,,if all the header pipes are glowing on that side. Good luck. Tommy
When I broke in my last SBC, both headers were glowing. With the quality of the headers now a days it seems pretty normal to me. Can you move the air/fuel tester to the other side? They make some that can be clipped to the end of the exhaust tip as well.....
Ive had this happen, it was actually burning extra fuel in the driver side header, aka way to rich, which explained why thw water temp was fine but the header was glowing, if it was too lean it should be running hot also. hope this helps.
Check the firing order? Newer 5.0 HO is different then the older 289/302, depending on what cam you used it could have either firing order. I mixed them up and if I remember right it was the passenger header that got red hot. I was using the old firing order on a newer H.O Engine. We got it started open headers so it was hard to tell it was misfiring and the passenger headers got red hot because it was firing two cylinders on the passenger side on the exhaust stroke instead of compression. It was a while back so I'm going off memory. 302 (Pre-82) 1-5-4-2-6-3-7-8 5.0 HO 1-3-7-2-6-5-4-8 I'd say it was valve adjustment too but it's hard to believe you would only get half the engine rite and the other half be off.
I have seen this many times on a fireup of a fresh motor,sometimes this is normal. Does this cam have a fair amount of overlap if so 11 may not be enough timing and do you have a vacuum advance hooked to manifold vacuum.The glowing red is fuel burning in the headders.
Two things it could be. 1st is your distributor a vacuum advance? You may have your vacuum line hooked up to the wrong spot on your carb. 2nd could be the firing order beatnik talked about. There is truck and sedan firing order and there is H.O. Mustang, thunder chicken firing order. Then there is standard and reverse rotation engines. Do you have the correct cam and firing order?
Shhhh! It's funny to watch. Matt, did you try any of these things yet? I fucked the dune buggy all up today. Ground and resined 142 holes, took the roll bar out, took the steering apart, pulled the hood off. I decided to just go ahead and paint it before I do the bed liner stuff. I know. I'm an idiot! But I do feel like I kind of accomplished something. Oh, and I sold the 1200 today. Now I can get my bank account to zero. Yay!
I've had this 3 times already with installing "crate" rebuilt engines. After checking all the usual suspects, timing, mixture, vacuum leaks, etc. Readjust the valves. Probably have to do them running, if they were adjusted too tight. I think those engine rebuilder actually follow the shop manual recommendations to tighten down the lifters one full turn after zero lash. In most cases, this is too much. OR they don't primer the hyd lifters with oil before installing, so the zero lash they think it is....isn't!
Moderately glowing headers seem to be fairly common during the cam break-in phase. Especially if it's near dusk or the car is in a shady place. I'm guessing it may be as simple as less air flow from the fan on the passenger side and more on the drivers side.
I tried that too! the mainifold is duel plane so the right side feeds the front and back corners the left side feeds the middle cyclinders.
[800 F is not very hot and 450 F is basically not running at all, when [/QUOTE] I agree with you. since I am trying to break in my cam I expect to see higher exhaust temp. these temp readings are based off multiple one minute runs. after 1 minute my driver side header will be around 450-600 (what you would expect) the pasengerside reaches 800 (the max on my heat gun before it starts to blink 3 lines. shorlty after that the header begins to glow dull red. I havent run it for more than a couple of minutes so I'm a little nervous to just let it run for 15 min. to breal in the cam
Secondary combustion (in the tube) is a good bet, but i'd be looking at the intake gasket. On the ford the bolt holes are slots because of how the intake bolts go into the head. This gasket can slip down when installing the intake and the engine will suck air thru the top of the intake runner, to make things worse when you spray goo to see if it leaks the gasket will actually swell up and seal momentarily. Just another way to fuck with you. If you had a single plane high rise you could see down into the runner, if you can see any gasket it has slipped. Sucking air here will lean just that bank. Have a look at those plugs, if they look clean 'out-of-the-box' then you're sucking air. Them fords don't like to glow.
I will look into this. my block is an early 289 but has been built to a stroker 331. I simpy used early firing order bucause of its age, Ill check with my machinest today!
You may be looking at the wrong side. Normally when this happens to me, the cold side has a cylinder or two that aren't hitting like they should. I bet if you look closer at individual tube temps you'd have found one or more real cold ones. It's real easy to see the glowing side and think it's the problem, but that's just a sign you need more fans pointed at it. Kinda lines up with the firing order advice too good luck
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