Re: Article I read at hotrod.com Looks weird to me.
Re: Re: Article I read at hotrod.com Looks weird to me. -- Old Guy	Post Reply	Top of thread	Maverick Message Board

Posted by: Ken Merring 01/11/2002, 10:46:30

:=I read a article at www.hotrod.com under the 50 tips and tricks that said if you spray a little water down your carb when it is idleing high it will clean out some carbon. I am very hesitant to do this because I have always run off of what I learned when my sisters Sunbird took a swim in the last flood, water + engine = bad! Would anyone tell me if this is worth it? It just seems a bit off to me, like snipe hunting. Also another bit in it says that if you file a the ground electrode on a spark plug halfway across the hot electrode you will get a little more HP and mileage. To get there go to 'car tech' then 'tips and tricks' scroll down a bit and click on engine. This has me very curious. Anyone have any other little tricks like this to raise performance? :=Thanks, :=RudyD Well here is my two cents worth, yes the water sprayed into the carb, in small amounts, will in some cases dislodge carbon build up on the tops of the pistons. The theory is that the cold water hitting the hot carbon will cause it to loosen and burn away. There are numerous products sold that are supposed to do the same thing when poured down the carb. They also are good mosquito foggers as they produce huge amounts of smoke out the exhaust. As for the spark plug electrode, I have done this on my sons racing go-kart years ago, used a Volkswagen plug in 5hp Briggs and sawed half the electrode off, this gives a better flame pattern in the cyl. It did improve performance somewhat, but we also were running alcohol fuel. The split fire plugs sold now are based on the same principal. Funny how a lot of things we old backyard mechanics came up with worked fairly well and were commercialized. ..................... Guy....I use the marine surface fire plug in the briggs with the mag close to the flywheel. > .010. This has always produced substantial extra torque up to about 4800, to get off the turns on alky. It can be seen on the dyno everytime a plug swap is made between runs. Appears that it only works in a flathead engine like the briggs. Plug being located over the intake valve never gets flushed with the intake charge. Plug only see it on compression when the piston pushes the mix back in the chamber area. Plugs are the champ #L76 and L78. No ground strap and they fire 360 as shown by close inspection of the porclian which may be why they act as they do in this engine. Ken

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