Colortune Engine Analyzer

[Ron Green]

Anyone have any experience with this tool. I have had decent results adjusting carburetors using a vacuum gage and a RPM meter. This or a code reader (one or the other) may be a belated x-mas gift and I am leaning toward the engine code reader.

http://www.automotive-diagnostic-tools.c...074-100-ast.htm

[Ivan Saxton]

I have had one of these for 40 years. You can certainly see the difference between the orange flame of rich mixture, and blue when it is lean. One thing it could do that other methods cannot tell you, is if there is variation in mixture strength between cylinders. Otherwise it is probably less useful, but it still does have its place if you feel inclined.

(The colur change is just like a bunsen gas burner. If you restrict the air you get an orange flame; and if you open the air supply it turns clear/blue. If you look at the video of My Fair Lady, a film that won the Oscar for Best Film of its year, you can see that they cheated. When Eliza is learning to pronounce her H's with a megaphone cone and a gas burner, someone was playing with the tap, because the flame increased, but remained orange! When we did a stage production here in Warragul five years ago, I mounted one of the burners from my whitemetal heating pots (for crankshaft bearings) on a little gas bottle, with a hole to the air gap from Eliza's cone. Every good H she said, the flame jumped and turned blue. Just simple secondary school chemistry and physics.)

Regards, Ivan Saxton

[Ron Green]

Thanks Ivan. I didn't realize they have been around that long. I totally agree with your comment that it may assist you in "variation in mixture strength between cylinders" however I am unsure how valuable that information would be since there isn't much you could do to change it.

I'm thinking the good old vacuum gauge is probably as good as anything. Their hard to beat for diagnosing engines.

[Jay Wolf]

We use to use them on motorcycle back in the 80's

[bill pritchett]

Ron,

They are used by a lot of the MG owners as they are an easy way to tune the dual SU1s on the T series. I had a friend use one for me and they are very convenient.

[Ron Green]

Bill, I never thought of a multiple carb set up, makes sense. I have been fond of the vacuum gauge and have started using a RPM meter recently with ok results.

Jay, when I used to mess with motorcycles one of the key tools as a match pack under the carburetor idle screw.