My lude's been running excessively rich for a long time and in the process of trying to find the problem i started checking the distributor. My distributor cap was orange (similar to rust's color) on the inside so i gave that a good clean and i noticed that my rotor's metal strip, which transfers the spark to my cap, was burnt. By burnt i mean the metal strip was black in appearance and had some spots that appeared to be chipped away, ie it wasn't a smooth and level piece of metal it had indents etc. In the service manual it say's not to grind or sand the rotor but i did so anyway to try to restore some of the good conducting metal underneath. After a fair bit of sanding it restored the silver metal color and so i screwed the rotor back into place and gave the car a few weeks to settle in, i also reset the ECU. My muffler and rear bumper remained almost carbon free and the lude felt heaps more responsive. After about a week it started to throw out carbon again so i redid the sanding, much less sanding this time round , and reset'ed the ECU. Tha car ran fine for a week or so again then the same happens.

Does anyone know exactly why the rotor could start to burn, the terminals in the cap even show wear from the burning. Im considering to get a new rotor to see if that helps aswell, is something like an MSD rotor any good or stick to OEM. The lude is pritty much standard with intake and exhaust mods.

Thanks

 

I've always had the best results using OEM parts. The "burning" is somewhat normal. However, the orange dust you describe is somewhat worrisome. Could mean your distributor bearing is on it's last legs.

 

sounds like its just time to replace the cap and rotor.

About running rich, this may seem weird, but check your TPS. My car is running rich and getting bad MPG, but my TPS is effed up. Ive narrowed it down to that being the issue

 

I actually did relace my cap not long ago due to a crack that it had running across almost half of the cap on the intake manifold side. The rotor is next on the list and could only improve the situation.

One other thing that i have noticed that is a major contributor to my lude running rich is my intake, once i get the pod on my aluminium pipe the carbon deposits greatly increases and my fuel economy takes a huge dive too. The power doesn't really increase by much uptop and i loose low end torque but i do love the sound. I ended up cutting up the factory box and combining it with the aluminium pipe. Its a lot quieter but my fuel economy is restored and i get more down low torque.

As for the TPS, thats the little sensor right next to the throttle body blade on the fire wall side right. My intake is filled with oily grease, thanks to the pvc valve i think, and the little track running towards the tps is also loaded in the grease. I will be using carb/throttle cleaner on it some time soon. Would it work if i have the car running when i spray the stuff in, i know they say to have it off but i dont want all the deposits to ly in my cylinders untill i start it. Thanks