Teg4e

What're the long term effects to the engine of running rich? With my Vortec 12:1 FMU, I'll pretty sure I'm running rich and would like to know how this will effect me, say 3 or 5 years down the line. (Assuming it makes it that far )

Mr. Vapor

cylinder wash?

SoulSurfer

Carbon buildup?

p.s. I'm engine stupid. If it's not bolt on I have no clue.


[Modified by LSDelSol, 7:45 AM 10/12/2002]

falcongsr

carbon buildup, short catalytic convertor life, shorter o2 sensor life

turbopanda

Burning out the insides of your exhaust pipe from fireballs (I messed up my HKS Hiper by doing that)

SoulSurfer

Woohoo! I got one right.

Lei Siew Long

washing out your piston rings

mos

What if you're like
11:1?
12.5?
13:1?
13.5:1 ?
14:1?

Whats the differences?

rjardy

If you run rich for a long time you can get blow-by, there will be to much fuel to burn and when the compression stroke come around and we all know that fluid is not compresable, it will push it down through the cylinder wall and the piston, damaging the rings, and leading to major blowby.

Rob

SIK IN DA HED

daym... serious? i better start lookin into leaning my air/fuel out after 4500+ rpms.

rjardy

Yeah its bad news if you are really rich. But if its just a little its good, but i try to stay on top of my air/fuel ratio, its trickey it plays so many parts the allot of people just dont think about.

Rob

falcongsr

greddy blue box dumps so much fuel to get you to about 10:1 to keep the rice boys from frying their motors doing 5th gear pulls to 140mph.

anything richer than that is dangerous in my opinion. with good tuning you should be between 13:1 and 11:1.

Arturbo

Black bumper

Aeka GSR

black bumper, lol yup.

The blue box was INSANELY RICH! Puff of black smoke durring hard throttle hits and shifts.

Teg4e

haha, yeah it's a good thing my car's already black, but damn my thermal stays shiny for maybe 5 minutes after washing off that build-up. Guess I need to look into better fuel management sooner rather than later.

for Turbopanda> how long did it take to mess up your exhaust from the 'fireballs'? What exactly happened? I hear alot of more or less loud pops from my exhaust all the time, and this has me concerned now...

Thanks for the responses guys

FredoSP

hmmm not from my blue box as far as I know.

Arturbo

You have a cat, they dont.

Etylorcen

Meow

ion_four

How serious is this cylindewash-down? I've been running REALLY rich for about a month now, I don't drive the car too much, but the best I can figure I'm running 10:1 at some points (since the o2 sensor only puts out 1v max )

PrecisionH23a

Very good info What a/f ratio would you guys say falls in the lines of running this rich to actually do this type of damage?

rjardy

Thanks for the prop's. I am not sure axactly how rich you need to be before it will start damageing your rings. But as long as you stay around stoich, i think you would be cool. BTW anyone know and optimal A/F ratio for our turbo cars?


Rob

bretx0r

running rich is better than running lean.

rjardy

Agreed, but some people dont know that running rich can damge things, not in the same ways as running lean but still. Running rich is still in no way safe. Cant stress the tuning enough. dyno time dyno time dyno time

Rob

turbopanda

actually I have a dog

yes, i don't have a catalytic converter. Those things steal so much power its not funny.. but over here there's no laws on exhausts, so its not unusual to see an Evo or an Impreza running around the streets with a straight pipe as an exhaust coming out the back of their car. Loud as hell, but it sounds so sexy, especially when you do it to a boxer engine

turbopanda

Basically, back in the days when I still hadn't discovered the wonders of standalone/piggyback engine management, I was still struggling with my Civic. Had big problems with fuel.. there just wasn't enough. So I put in som B18C injectors into my D16Y8 and connected a fuel pressure regulator and pushed it up to about 5 bar (yes, 5 bar!!). The car idled like ****, so I went out and bought a A'PEXi S-AFC. OK, my idle was a bit more better after that. But I still had this thought in my head that when under boost, you need all the fuel you can get, so after 4000rpm, i set my hi-throttle settings in my S-AFC all at 50%. The car ran a little bit better.. but was still a bit sluggish under boost and WOT.

One night, I was racing with my friend's H22A accord and some integra on the highway. I was head-to-head with the teg, just shifted into 5th gear, still going at it. My friend's accord was right behind me. The injectors must have been dumping a whole crapload of fuel, as when I let go of the accelerator in 5th gear, then tapped the accelerator once more after that, I had about 4 meters of fire gushing out of my exhaust pipe for about 8 seconds, and I blackened the front bumper of my friend's accord real well.. I actually saw the flames from my rear-vision mirror, and was kind of shocked. The teg saw it too, and he was beside me. He rolled down the windows and said "damn you have a fast car.. I saw fire coming out of your exhaust pipe then, just like one of those RX7 circuit cars!"

I thought it was cool, but didn't even think about what fire would do to the internals of my exhaust pipe, so after that night, I figured out how to make fireballs, and did it whenever someone would race me.

A month or so later, I had the proper fuel management installed. My mechanic was revving the engine, and could hear a ringing sort of sound from my exhaust. He shut the engine off and looked down my exhaust. The insides had been almost totally burnt out.

The exhaust still worked, just that the nice deep sound wasn't there anymore.. it started sounding more like a fart can exhaust that ricers use.

BTW, here's a picture of my dog with my "swappable" straight-pipe exhaust that I had made for my civic (used this for a while when I tried to get my HKS exhaust fixed up) What would the cops say over there if they saw you running around with one of these?