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View Full Version : oil on spark plug question s13 sr

blksylv
10-22-2009, 11:34 PM
well recently i was doing some maintenance and i decided to check the plugs and long story short pulled the plugs and on the 2nd and 3rd cylinder there was a decent amount of oil on the part of the plug that screwed into the head. the car doesnt smoke or anything like that but under boost i can smell a faint whiff of burnin oil. my question is what could be causing it. i also installed a electric oil pressure gauge and under boost my oil pressure was around 75 and spiked around 85-90 in the higher rpms. if anybody could chime in on this your help would be greatly appreciated. thanx.
johngriff
10-22-2009, 11:41 PM
Ok, was the TIP of the plug oily? If so, you have major issues inside the engine, and will need a rebuild/service.

Might be the head, head gasket, valve seals, rings etc... a good mechanic will be able to narrow it down.

If there was not oil on the TIP of the plug, then it probably ran down from the nut when you loosened it for removal. This is more than likely a bad valve cover gasket seal, and the cover gasket (specifically the O rings around each spark plug well) needs to be serviced. Failure to service this will cause a loss of power, and eventually spark break up from the oil fouling the contact between the coil and plug.
blksylv
10-23-2009, 12:06 AM
ya it was the tip
ericb382
10-23-2009, 07:36 AM
compression/leakdown test it. Did you have excessive blow-by?
blksylv
10-23-2009, 09:01 AM
ill compression check it 2day and no blowby
blksylv
10-23-2009, 11:30 AM
update, upon reinspecting the plugs oil is on the threaded part not the tip. the spark plugs also werent torqued down properly and the spark plug hole gaskets on 2 and 3 are leaking so im gonna change those out on sunday and then reinspect the plugs
keytops
10-23-2009, 01:18 PM
Change the whole valve cover gasket not just one part. If the other seals arn't leaking yet they will be after you try to reuse them.
blksylv
10-23-2009, 03:10 PM
the vc gasket was changed at the time of the swap so its a couple months old, i wouldve changed out the spark plug gaskets but they were on backorder from a couple of places. i got those in maybe a month ago. i had re rtv'd the one that were on there but i guess that they didnt hold. im going to change all 4 so i dont have 2 worry about it again.