Spark plug colour...i think its lean?

Hi

Ive read many different posts and looked at lots of pictures of "how a plug should look like"....
To be honest i thinks its fried my brain even more as everyone seems to have different views etc.

I have a 1998 Neos 2 stroke. It has a standard airbox with red fiter foam (Mallossi if that sounds right), 17.5mm del and a techniqas pro silent exhaust.
I was told a 68mj would be the correct one. Going on side of caution i started with a 74 and air/mixture screw 1.5 turns out.
I gave it full throttle for about half a mile after warming up the engine for a few minutes then turned it off removed plug(i didnt come to a dead stop thou)

I think its running lean...the white tip has turned a gray colour?
Im having problems identifing the "correct colour" as i have read that gray is good(optimal) and also...yes you guessed....gray is bad(lean)
I have lots of jets to test with but know which direction to go.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

As a side note you really really don’t need a high flow air filter on that set up.

It sounds like a very similar set up to my LX50 before I went to a 70 head.

Even now I don’t have such a high flow filter on.

I would swap that back to stock and tune from there, and then see what your plug looks like.

Also I have a the 17.5 Dellorto still, had it on 68 main jet then increased to 71 when I went up to the 70 head, so again a 74 is probably too big.

 

Cheers for reply mate. I have also read that the malossi red replacement foam doesnt actually do anything different than the standard anyway.
Ive been speaking to somone this morning in the trade and he says im all but there. Im just on the lean side of being set up perfect...if that makes sense. He said try and raise the needle one notch...its currently set halfway.
The standard mj in the original 12mm carb is 72 on the neos. You would assume that the bigger carb would need a smaller mj but it doesnt seem to be working that way.
Back to the drawing board

 

In my experience it so does alter stuff with the MALOSSI red, mine went in, couldn’t tune it took it back out on solid advice from Pedparts (doesn’t come better than that) and was able to tune there on in.

I now have a kind of middle ground Stage6 filter sits half way between stock and the MALOSSI, but that’s on a bigger cylinder.

I know it’s red and it’s a good brand etc but your set up simply doesn’t need that much air coming in.

 

Mate that is so wierd you mentioned pedparts. Thats where i get most of my parts from and have spoken to them many times. They are the ones that said i should be running a 68mj with my set up and believe it or not thats where i read the red filter makes no noticeable change.
I am going to put the original back in thou and try that....fingers crossed.
Im not looking at making it go the speed of light or anything its only to nip to the shops on a summer evening type thing instead of lumping van around.
Thanks for your input and advice. I will post back on here IF and WHEN i get it sorted

 

Nice one, they are brilliant guys there.

I’ve posted my spec, it’s just a few threads down in this section if it helps at all.

But I had that same exhaust when I was at 50cc so kinda been there, bought that lol and well you can guess the rest.

Good luck and look forward to hearing back

 

I will have a look at the in a mo