Ok, changed plugs and this happened, I'm very open to the possibility that plugs had nothing to do with it and it's just coincidence.


Primaries 6 and 8 glow red, the car has a decent cam, TPIS longtubes, 1.6 rockers, it;s been running this fine for better than 6 months.
The opti is about two years old withmaybe 5000 miles on itwires are a year old and appear to be fine, the injectors have about 80xxx miles on them.
So I switched the plugs 6 and 8 started glowing red, the problem seems worse when it's colder. Checked the plugs they looked fine, but like they had gotten REALLY hot, replaced the back two plugs, injectors appear to be fine, switched them, problem persisted in those two cylinders. Valve lash was readjusted, problem persisted.
It idles between 1500 and 2000rpms when cold, after it goes into closed loop it drops down to a fluctuation between 1000 and 1200rpms. reving it and then letting off the gas causes it to almost die, but it does recover. When cold it can't even back out the driveway, it stalls and dies, when warm I can kind of drive it if I'm gentle on the throttle and don't vary it to rapidly.
There is no SES light.

 

Sounds like crossed plug wires to me...

 

did one plug at a time when changing them so I wouldn't cross them, then checked them three times just to make sure, and I have my wires ran over the vlave covers in looms so it makes it really difficult to mess up. So I know the wires aren't crossed.

 

Check them again, crossed plug wires is the only logical answer. Do a continuity check to quadrouple check.

 

For another idea, pull the vacuum line off the fuel pressure regulator and check it for gas (visual and smell test). Leakage from the regulator can cause extra fuel to be dumped into the runner area for 6 and 8.

 

those two cylinders may be running in a "super lean" condition, which would cause that. if an intake valve is hanging open it would cause that, letting way too much air in.

 

Is the valve lash set correctly on those two? If the exhaust valve was hanging open on the power stroke, part of the burning charge would be going out the exhaust port and heating it up a lot. That might also explain the poor idle and stalling problems.

BRAD

 

What is a continuity check?

The heads were just redone last summer, new seals, new springs, and I just redid the lash, wich appeared fine in the first place.

any thoughts on why things would smooth out considerably in closed loop if it was valve related?

I'll check the fuel regulator, if there is fuel do I replace the regulator?

 

i would check the headers. if your ex is clogged up could couse this prob. when my cot stopped ur my manifolds were glowing red, and run bad. if only 6&8 are red you may have mushed them, i think most longtubes these are on the bottom. just one more thing to check.

 

Replace the regulator if you have fuel in the line.

The extra fuel, not lack of, is what can cause the pipes to glow. The extra fuel burns in the pipe and causes higher heat.

 

I've got glowing header pipes on 3 and 5 (corvette). Thought it might be a bad intake gasket (leaking air on those two cylinders), thought it might be a bad head gasket but I changed it and no change, I have flow matched fuel injectors and thought about changing them around to see if the lean condition moved with the injectors...haven't gotten to it yet. can a leaky header cause that condition? I have long tubes with plugs in the smog air fitting (on number 3 & 5 pipes)...has anyone ever experienced that? Did you ever figure out why your car had glowing headers? Also, my car is breaking up, so I changed the ignition module, spark plugs and four wires...still breaking up...can a bad distributor cause those two cylinders to burn red?

 

I'm with him. Seems the exhaust valves may be open. It's real easy to check. Run each of the cylinders in question to TDC and do a leak down test. In 10 minutes you'll have the valve question answered.

You may need to do all the cylinders just to compare. By the way if the valves (ex) are slow to close. This would also show up on a compression test. But the leak down test will show which valve if any is the problem.