Hey guys.....Have a question about glowing headers on a new built motor

[April]

My little cousin's friend has a 91 fox body, he just built a motor and put it in.

Its a 347 stroker with flat top pistons. He has a comp 282 cam he thinks its an xe, 11:1 cr, afr 185cc heads. 30# injectors, edelbrock intakes, and bbk 70mm throttle body. he has bbk long tubes also. his fuel pressure is set at 45

He wants to get it tuned however he cant because he ran into a problem.

They set the timing at 12 because thats what comp cam told him, and about 10 minutes into running the headers were glowing red, they changed the timing multiple times all the way to 20 degrees and still have problem

Any suggestions?

He said other than that the car seems to be running really good!

Thanks guys!
April

 

[FISHTAIL]

Not good...does it have cats? If so, make sure they aren't clogged. When he set the fuel pressure...how did he do it?

 

[FISHTAIL]

Btw, I'll be interested to hear if those injectors turn out to be big enough for that setup. I have a 331 with AFR185's, 11:1cr and a custom ground cam, and I wasn't going to run anything smaller than a 36#er. Unless you have some other kind of fuel delivery problem that's causing an extreme lean condition this shouldn't be the cause of your glowing header problem though. Speaking of...what kind of MAF is he running? Is it "Calibrated" for 30#ers?

 

[04yellowcobra]

I am sure its running good!! Because its about to blow up!! Glowing headers is off the chart lean, meaning no where near enough fuel. But more than likely the damage is already done.

 

[FISHTAIL]

I am sure its running good!! Because its about to blow up!! Glowing headers is off the chart lean, meaning no where near enough fuel. But more than likely the damage is already done.

LOL! That or it has a plugged up exhaust. I'm with you though, I think something is causing it to run VERY lean. April, find out about the MAF..45psi and 30# injectors shouldn't cause that kind of condition at idle.

 

[silver03tt]

Check the timing mark on the balancer. I've run into this with my 92 with a 331 and my friend's cars. Take out the number one spark plug and bring it up on top dead center using a ratchet on the crank bolt. Use a small screwdriver or a TDC locator if you have one to feel the piston coming up or down as you are turning the crank. When you are satisfied that you have found top dead center, check the balancer and see if the pointer is at zero. It probably is not. You can either put a notch on your balancer and that will be your new zero. Using a timing light with the timing advance knob on the back you can easily set your timing correctly. Or you can buy an adjustable timing pointer. I've seen some where the marks are off pretty bad. This may not be your problem but is worth a shot.

 

[sunburned]

Don't think I've ever heard of glowing headers on a N/A car, that's quite a feat lol.

 

[kens03cobra]

I would say they are getting hot ;-)

 

[gcassidy]

I would say they are getting hot ;-)

Master of deduction. :lol:

 

[TGS2]

Glowing headers are fine. Bust out the hot dogs and have a camp fire.:banana:

J/K


That sucks and scares me at the same time. I'm putting together my own set up right now and am going to be using 30# injectors. I think I'll push the car out of the garage before starting it. lol

 

[Derek@Amazon]

I am sure its running good!! Because its about to blow up!! Glowing headers is off the chart lean, meaning no where near enough fuel. But more than likely the damage is already done.

yup!

 

[Finaltheorem47]

I'm betting its the ignition timing. My Jeep's exhaust was glowing all the way from the headers through the cats into the muffler (yes the muffler all the way back was glowing red) before I noticed it (stupid stupid stupid). I had just rebuilt it and stuck a comp cam in and it had a mild lope which I thought was bad ass, but just turns out I stuck my distributer in one gear off.

From now on, I take an infrared heat gun and hit the exhaust after a few min to check. My headers were painted black so I never actually saw what happened. I think with me though it was sending a crap load of fuel down the pipe and the cat was working its ass off trying to burn it all.

 

[hpbyhermann]

April, this is almost always a timing issue.

The balancer on a 5.0 is a two piece design with the outer ring bonded to the center with a rubber ring and over time they slip on the hub and the timing marks are way off. Like someone mentioned before in the thread check TDC manually and i'd bet you find the hub slipped. Ford Racing sells a balancer kit with a timing tab cheap for 5 liters. :rockon: Hermann

 

[FISHTAIL]

Glowing headers are fine. Bust out the hot dogs and have a camp fire.:banana:

J/K


That sucks and scares me at the same time. I'm putting together my own set up right now and am going to be using 30# injectors. I think I'll push the car out of the garage before starting it. lol

LOL, that's why I have 36#ers...not much bigger, but enough to make me feel better. You should be fine for initial startup though, I ran mine for almost an hour (poking around the neighborhood too) with 24#ers on it. I wouldn't dare crack into it with the 24's though.

If you want, I have a set of 39's off of a cobra I'd sell you on the cheap. I got them for mine before I found a set of 36#ers, so I have no use for them now.

 

[April]

He set it with an adjustable FPR and used a fuel pressure gauge, its calibrated and its a Prom racing 75mm, they checked the balancer using the TDC method and its fine.

He thinks he found the problem, he had the wrong spark plugs, denso twin tip in there (too short) but he found out they called for autolite spark plugs with longer threads.

Do you guys think that any damage was caused, and that will fix his problem? He is about to put them off.

He said total its been ran 45 minutes total. Over a two day period, and after that the next day they started glowing, and when he took the spark plugs out they are completely black, and smell like fuel, and the ones in the back were wet with fuel.

Sounds to me like it wasnt burning up and it might fix his problem, think he is ok?

Thanks for the replies guys! I will update him tonight as you guys reply.

 

[NeverFastEngh]

You should have the timing at 10 with the pip key pulled. The eec needs the 10 as its base. and like they all said glowing headers is way way too lean and probably cooked something.

 

[NeverFastEngh]

He set it with an adjustable FPR and used a fuel pressure gauge, its calibrated and its a Prom racing 75mm, they checked the balancer using the TDC method and its fine.

He thinks he found the problem, he had the wrong spark plugs, denso twin tip in there (too short) but he found out they called for autolite spark plugs with longer threads.

Do you guys think that any damage was caused, and that will fix his problem? He is about to put them off.

He said total its been ran 45 minutes total. Over a two day period, and after that the next day they started glowing, and when he took the spark plugs out they are completely black, and smell like fuel, and the ones in the back were wet with fuel.

Sounds to me like it wasnt burning up and it might fix his problem, think he is ok?

Thanks for the replies guys! I will update him tonight as you guys reply.

I dont think short plugs would do that. and having fuel on them means that it wasnt hot enough of a spark or too much fuel, both of which wouldnt make the headers glow.

 

[April]

Uh oh :nonono:

 

[WeaponX_Perf]

I'm betting its the ignition timing.

+100
Your timing is too far retarded causing the fuel to burn up in the exhaust. Advance it and watch your headers stop glowing.