This is exactly what they look like the pictures not lying
I do believe that white is good or normal, but then again I spray paint for a living.
I know white on plugs is lean
I've heard clean burning or modern "lean burn" fuel causes it.
This is what the valves on the GT40Ps I had on my Thunderbird for 6K looked like after I pulled them (they were new when I bought them). The exhaust valves are lighter than the intake valves but not white.
It's running lean & TJ's is a little rich on three cylinders, the lighter valve being the desired color...
this motor came out of my oldest sons tbird,, we are breaking it down to the block.
it ran fine,, had oem HG's and good looking mains and rod bearings.
it was prob due to the stock fuel pump.
I wonder if the new E10/E15 is contributing to the white valves?
Actually the lighter exhaust valve looked like the others till I got some gasket remover on it while cleaning the old head gasket off. You can see the far left side of the valve is a bit darker. Actually the car does run a tiny bit on the rich side. I'm going to try swapping MAFs in the spring to see if it leans it out a bit. Fuel pressure is 39 PSI with 24lb injectors and a 155lph Walbro in the tank.
Dumb ass me sold those heads in November 2012 (with 6-7K on them) for $300 locally. Two weeks later I bought a Mark VII. I also have a spare GT40 intake sitting around. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Maybe? I've been running that E10 in all my cars for years (all we have here) and the valves on the GT40Ps I pulled off my Thunderbird weren't that white. Thunderbird got 93 octane from the start with this engine though (reduce chance of knock with advanced timing).
How about red exhaust valves...?
Fuel additives (like STP) contain chemicals that can turn exhaust valves red.
We have e10 here. Ive been running about 16° timing on my tbird with no detination.
Wide band monitoring would have put this in perspective. Normally exhaust valves should be light brown across the board. But not uncommon on a stock engine of OBD1 controlled to be a tinge on the white side.(white Not necessarily LEAN but close)Today it is mandatory to monitor A/F at all times. With today's fuels monitoring plug color is basically useless. To an extent when your A/F ratios are correct or near correct.
Here is how you fix it. One of my best tuners tuning one of my cars after a cam swap. Mark reads the A/F ratio after he makes adjustments. I maxed out my 42 LB injectors and had do change them out to 65 to get my DC correct
(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c209/tfalconier/null_zps157e9f62.jpg) (http://s28.photobucket.com/user/tfalconier/media/null_zps157e9f62.jpg.html)
I was told that by SOMEone at SOME point. Apparently the fuel around here has a witch's brew of additives then!
Possibly even more than that. Plus, alky won't detonate to the extent gas will, and it's also a small part of why alky engines can run a little more compression, among other reasons.
It has it's bad too..it's not as efficient as gas. But that's sideways from the topic.. lol
I figure my gas mileage went down 7% as they did the change over while I had a 50 mile commute each way. Lost a bit of power too. And when I advanced the timing for ethonal junk if I filled up at a gas station that didnt have the proper mixture or hadnt changed over yet it would ping. More timing is fun, but quit watering down our.gas.
jcassidy, do they have a texture to them or are they smooth and just colored looking?
when i did the headgasket on my brothers grand prix the first time(not long after he got it) his valves were fine and smooth but the second time abouth 30k miles later they looked like those but had a textured feel to them.
he had a bad habit of letting his car idle for real long periods of time and i thought that had something to do with it.
Here's what mine looked like. White valves seem to be the norm.(http://i663.photobucket.com/albums/uu352/bryan163photobucket/IMAG0063_zpsf5a75430.jpg)