How do I know my car is running lean? .. Help..

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Apr 2, 2004 | 04:45 PM

#11

aaron_b_b

Thread Starter

2nd Gear Member

Joined: Oct 2003

Posts: 210

From: United States

RE: How do I know my car is running lean? .. Help..

Quote:

ORIGINAL: pichinco

Sorry it took so long to get back to you aaron. WHT00GT told you right though. Full throttle is usually when you'll hear it. Especially at higher RPM's. The reason it happens (a great deal of the time) when your car is hot is because when you first start up your car, the fuel/air mixture is automatically rich to facilitate easier starting. Therefore, the reason old cars had a choke. More gas, less air. After the car heats up, you need more air, less gas....leaner. So if your having a problem with being too lean it usually shows up after you've warmed up.

Spark plug color....gray to light tan.
Hayne's manual has a nice color picture in the back if you really want to know what they look like. It has pictures of normal and several "troubleshooting" pictures.

Cool.. I'll do that.. Now this pinging or clickin' noise that you hear, is this only when you're at full throttle? Would it sound if you let go of the gas? I have a loud-*** exhaust set up and can't really hear anythning but a mean-sounding stang... I would have to go full throttle and then place it on nuetral so the noise would decrease. I'm hoping to take to dyno tomorrow Sat...

Apr 3, 2004 | 02:09 AM

#12

GT99GT

2nd Gear Member

Joined: Dec 2003

Posts: 394

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RE: How do I know my car is running lean? .. Help..

i think your just worrying for no reason, its prob just because u saw a few posts on the site and now u think u might be running lean, if u only did exhaust so far i bet your fine, and if you really think something is wrong and its not just your head screwin with you, take it for a dyno tune and theyll even things out for u with a air/fuel control chip and tune... but again, i doubt you have anything to worry about