the plugs were black, i tried in the past to change the timing but the car would start and runs best at it's original location ,what the previous owner had it at.. but I believe they were black do to running on 7 cylinders, wire 1 wire got toasted on the headers. soon as I changed it the car could acually idle, before it would start and stall.. but I changing the gaskets (intake) the vacume would rise to 10 drop to 5 jump back up. this happened last year as well when I installed the gaskets.. so I first do that, i just ordered them.. I have just the metal valley pan on there no other type of gasket. so I ordered felpro gaskets that the sales man says get sandwiched in between the metal gasket the its between the ports..