Spark Plugs

[DavesNotHereMan]

Thanks, that actually helps.

We are in No Georgia, about 45 mi North of Atlanta in the foothills of the mountains, so our season ends around the 1st of Nov. We usually get 1 or 2 bad storms of ice/snow. Example: this big nationwide cold spell, we will have a high of 34 tomorrow with a low of 22. Normal is 68/38. So we winterize here just in case.

My SeaDoo is out of the water (I have a dock and it is usually parked there for the week) and winterized in the garage, so there won't be much activity over the winter. Since this is my first jet ski and I have a total of 8 hrs of experience with it, I really do not know what to expect, so I appreciate it.

 

[mikidymac]

Watch those plug charts as they are always for 4 stroke/car engines. There are typically only 3 colors you will see in a 2 stroke:
Dry chocolate brown like a toasted marshmallow is spot on oil and fuel and what you want to see.
Dry White is lean with the engine not getting enough fuel and oil this is bad and will kill the engine.
Wet and black is too rich and is getting too much oil and fuel.

If your carb is set correct and your oil pump is adjusted to spec your plugs should be brown and last all season.
Also you can have everything correct and if you idle for a long time or have a long no wake zone back to the ramp you can foul a plug or look too rich even though everything is good when riding at speed.

 

[Spimothy Leary]

Watch those plug charts as they are always for 4 stroke/car engines. There are typically only 3 colors you will see in a 2 stroke:
Dry chocolate brown like a toasted marshmallow is spot on oil and fuel and what you want to see.
Dry White is lean with the engine not getting enough fuel and oil this is bad and will kill the engine.
Wet and black is too rich and is getting too much oil and fuel.

If your carb is set correct and your oil pump is adjusted to spec your plugs should be brown and last all season.
Also you can have everything correct and if you idle for a long time or have a long no wake zone back to the ramp you can foul a plug or look too rich even though everything is good when riding at speed.

agree with this post, regarding the bolded....

What we always did was a plug chop to get an accurate reading... run WOT for a bit, yank the lanyard, drift to shore and inspect the plugs then.

 

[mikidymac]

Yep the plug chop is the only accurate way to get a good plug reading but it is not that easy for somebody that has never done it and though not as accurate just checking them after a normal run will get you in the ball park.

Also the plug chop can get expensive because new plugs should be used each time but you will be dead on after you are finished.

 

[DavesNotHereMan]

Thanks, I did not know that.

Mine is an RFI, so I don't have to deal with the carbs. The oil pump could be another story. I need to dig out the manual for my ski (I have it and its for a 2001 GTX RFI), to find out where it even is, then I can look for the alignment marks.

After I got the chart from [MENTION=70873]ryan199358[/MENTION], I looked at the plugs I pulled again. They are definitely black, but not at all wet. The pic in the chart for carbon fouling shows "fluffy" deposits, the deposits on my plugs are not "fluffy" or "powdery", but it rubs off like carbon. That is, the deposits have no slippery feel to them at all - just dirty.

While this topic was originally to find out if anyone used plugs other than NGK, it was based on my original thread which described a missing or surging problem http://www.seadooforum.com/showthread.php?74843-New-Rider-New-Ski-new-member-new-problem-GTX-RFI.

I am thinking the best thing to do here is wait for the spring and run the ski and then check the plugs again. I just had the dealer go over everything and clean the rave valves and everything looked good, so maybe I am agonizing for nothing.

 

[DavesNotHereMan]

Thanks again, guys. I did not know what a plug chop was - new entry into the Dave-O-Pedia.

 

[Spimothy Leary]

Yep the plug chop is the only accurate way to get a good plug reading but it is not that easy for somebody that has never done it and though not as accurate just checking them after a normal run will get you in the ball park.

Also the plug chop can get expensive because new plugs should be used each time but you will be dead on after you are finished.

agree, although I never had to do more than one, my tuner was a pretty sharp fella, usually I was spot on, or just made a minor tweek right there and never thought about it again. Even on my yami, the tuner did a plug chop after tweeking the fuel controller. One and done at 200 hours, I looked at the plugs around hour #240 and they looked perfect, put them back in and haven't thought about them since, and i'm pushing 290 hours now.

 

[DavesNotHereMan]

Watch those plug charts as they are always for 4 stroke/car engines. There are typically only 3 colors you will see in a 2 stroke:
Dry chocolate brown like a toasted marshmallow is spot on oil and fuel and what you want to see.
Dry White is lean with the engine not getting enough fuel and oil this is bad and will kill the engine.
Wet and black is too rich and is getting too much oil and fuel.

If your carb is set correct and your oil pump is adjusted to spec your plugs should be brown and last all season.
Also you can have everything correct and if you idle for a long time or have a long no wake zone back to the ramp you can foul a plug or look too rich even though everything is good when riding at speed.

Well, that might explain everything.

My marshmallows do look like my black, carbon-charred spark plugs!


-Dave
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