Colortune worked fine on my 71 TR6 and I could tell a change in both
directions. Of course, valves that need adjusting, bad timing, oil burning,
carbs that need rebuilding, etc. can cause the mixture to be beyond the
envelope of too rich or too lean and therefore out of range of the ZS
mixture adjusment. What I mean is everything thing else needs to be damn
near perfect which can be a challenge in itself with these LBCs.
Jeff
Atlanta-'71 TR6
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Pete & Aprille Chadwell [SMTP:dynamic@transport.com]
> Sent: Friday, January 15, 1999 11:33 AM
> To: triumphs@autox.team.net
> Subject: Re: Colortune: A waste on a TR6.
>
>
> I've tried this once on my '73 TR6 and I thought it was useless. The way
> it works is this: They provide you with a dummy spark plug device with a
> sort-of "looking glass" built in. You install this in place of one spark
> plug and then run the engine. You look through the looking glass and
> check
> the color of the flash/flame inside the combustion chamber. One color is
> rich, one color is lean, and one color is just right. The trouble I had
> was that I could not perceive any difference in the color of the flame
> when
> I adjusted the mixture. I went all the way out to "full-rich" and all the
> way in to "full-lean" on the needle adjustment and could not tell any
> difference at all. It was very disappointing. Luckily, I was just
> borrowing the kit so I wasn't out any $dough$.
>
> To be fair, I've spoken to some folks who've said that the newer
> emissions-equipped carburettors like the Zenith-Strombergs will frustrate
> anyone with a Colortune kit. The explanation went something like this:
> ZS
> carbs have a very small swing between full-rich and full-lean, and this is
> why I didn't see any different colors in there. On the other hand, an
> older SU for example, apparently has a much larger swing between rich and
> lean. The guy I borrowed the kit from had an Austin Healey 100/6 and he
> swore by that Colortune kit... said it worked GREAT!
>
> You all can expand on this, or correct me if I'm wrong or misunderstanding
> something.
>
> Pete Chadwell
> 1973 TR6
>
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