Hey all, I wanted to bring this question to all of you because I've heard answers both ways and want to get it straight once and for all.

To what extent are spark plugs "self-cleaning"? I know they keep themselves fairly clean once they reach their operating temperature, but a while back I had trouble with flooding in my carb and the plugs got gas-fouled. Some people told me if I just changed some of them the others would clean themselves off once the engine warmed up. Others have told me that as the engine heats up fouling just gets worse.

What I'm asking is, to what extent will a plug clean itself? If you have one plug gas-fouled in an engine and seven clean, will the fouled one clean itself? What about a plug fouled with solid/fluffy carbon? At what point does the plug's self-cleaning property break down?

Thanks.
Mark

Look at it this way. Something had to cause the plug to foul. If the source is not corrected don't expect the plug to clean itself. I call self-cleaning something like if your idle circuit is too rich and sitting at long lights causes the fouling then they seem to clear up once you rev it a bit or you flooded the engine and and the plugs are fuel wet and you wait 30 min for them to dry... See what I am getting at!

Back to your example of 7 firing and 1 dead. Why is it dead? What caused it to foul? It won't magicly heal itself...

A properly tuned, running engine the plugs stay clean.

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...Dennis
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[This message has been edited by DjD (edited 02-03-2001).]

I understand, but I'm saying if a problem cam e up that fouled the plugs, but you corrected it...would they stay fouled or clean themselves?