It's not possible to run rich with the stock ecu.
Plugs indicate engine's condition at last seconds of operation.
If engine is sitting, plugs will be black.
Make sure you use stock static timing at 5 degress.
It would be nice if you could hook up consult and see what's going on.
Have you wired back the speed signal from cluster to ecu?
Ecu does not activate vvl without speed signal and also runs with lower rev limit.
VE ecu it tunable, for details see
here.