Someone recently told me that the color of your headers is indicative of how lean you are running on each particular cylinder. Purple means running lean...

How can that be? If anything I would think it is indicative of how hot each cylinder is running. Of course won't any header turn purple eventually from heat/ use if not coated or treated?

Of course this is on fairly new headers, cause on used ones they are already purple/ blue/ grey...

Thanks!

 

Haha I don't know if that's true or not but it's funny to think of all these wives back in the day sitting around talking about headers

 

I don't think it's a good indication since once it becomes blue, it pretty much stays blue. A better indication would be the exhaust. If you peek into the exhaust, a lean burning engine would make the interior walls kinda white. A rich burning engine causes a lot of carbon deposits inside the exhaust. It just means that a rich engine has unburnt fuel and a lean one causes exhaust to be a lot hotter than usual stripping the walls of extra carbon deposit. It's still not a perfect indicator, but I think it's the most accurate you can get without an A/F meter...

 

I meant this is only supposed to work on new headers... But who cares? They all turn blue/ purple/ gray after a while... some of the primaries change colors faster than others though... 2 and 4 seem to be changing faster...

 

You are just dying to be a post ***** arent you?!?!