Black Soot Normal **PICS**

[b1gdog83]

I also changed the oil today and took a look under the side panel.

[redlowrey]

The colour looks alright are they BKR6E, I don't know if it is just the picture but the reach looks very long. Can you describe how the engine cranks over, like normal speed, slow or starts then stalls that sought of thing. Does your engine burn much oil, looking at the plugs I wouldn't think.
I am assuming your engine has a throttle cable and no o2sensor, it is not an ap engine is it because one will have an iac bypass air valve, and the other will have electronic throttle control.
Battery voltage also plays a big part in how these engines start.

[b1gdog83]

I’m not sure what type of spark plugs they are. However, the engine is only 6 months old (100 hours) and they are the ones that came from the manufacture.

I only had one time where the engine wasn’t starting properly and that’s when I received the 3-2 code. When this occurred the engine wouldn’t turn over and when it did it would stall and shut off. This occurred for approximately 2 minutes and then started up. It then ran fine for the rest of the day.

I changed the oil yesterday and the oil level was a bit higher then when I checked it at the 20 hour oil change. So it’s not burning much oil. I have a fly by wire throttle.

[redlowrey]

The colour of the plug looks fine, if there was a problem with high signal voltage on the map it would have been black. You may have just had a glitch with the electronic throttle control, engines that have a throttle cable have an idle speed control motor that bypasses a certain amount of air for start up depending sensor information. Your engine uses electronic throttle control, meaning the pcm will open the throttle a certain amount depending on other sensor information, usually around 16% if for some reason it does not open wide enough it will produce the symptoms you had. If the problem keeps hanging around you will have to take it to your dealer so they can look at live scan tool data, and actually see what the percentage of throttle opening is on start up.

[b1gdog83]

Thanks redlowrey for all your help. Someone mentioned earlier about the soot could be from being in idle or reverse for long periods of time. Like I mentioned earlier I've been deep dropping lately and keeping my boat in idle while I'm fishing. I also have been reversing into the current a lot to negate my drift. What are your thoughts on this being the reason why I'm getting that black soot?