Spark Plug Electrodes Gone Through Engine.. Repairable?

[DVS JEZ]

what is the point in cleaning the entire plug?

just use sand paper to clean the electrode and centre electrode where the spark exits and meets, no need to clean the rest. then blow dry with air to remove and dust

[jarrod83]

Well he first said that the oxy couldnt caused the earth straps to break, i replied asking what about when they sprayed on carbie cleaner to cool them down along with a bunch of pictures of the spark plugs, pistons and head damage.. he replied that he didnt really see any problems with the damage and that it could mostly be cleaned up with some emery cloth, ill probably try and take the block and head my machine shop tomorrow to get them to inspect the damage, going to be one long sleepless night :S

Yeh he is a reputable workshop and tuner, been impressed with his tunes in the past. Its going to be hard to put the blame solely on his shoulders as i was the one that installed them at his workshop, i was going to just soak them in some petrol for abit as they had fouled up by me after a few cold starts whilst i was having problems with the new ecu, but he said he could just quickly hit them up with the oxy and burn the crap off them. I would of just got new spark plugs but the ones i order always take half a day to a day and the car had been booked in for the dyno that morning.

The reason why the BCPR7ES's went back in was because i was concerned with the brand new BKR5E11's breaking after he suggested that the heat range was no good, :S its a very sad irony =( I should of just grabbed some BCPR6ES's they always have them in stock =/

Id there anything else besides the oxy or the tune that could possibly caused 5 spark plugs to break the way they have???

Jarrod

[TiTAN]

a heat range 7 plug is the hottest you would want to go with a GT35, anything hotter will just give you problems as soon as the boost comes on.

[jarrod83]

The guy that sprayed them with the carbie cleaner.. im not even sure if he is employed there, as they were working on a drag car together :S although the tuner was there overwatching.. oh and the spark plugs had cooled down a good 20 mins before they were sprayed.. but they were still a little hot to handle..

Jarrod

[tm_r33]

yes the fact that after he heated them up to more than twice the usual operating temp, he thought it would be wise to cool them down quickly with carbi cleaner. This keeps getting worse. Heating and cooling them like that would of cause the metal to harden beyond working order. They would have been that brittle im surprised u got them back in the car with out them breaking first. Im honestly concerned that some one in the automotive industry wouldnt know about heat fatigue or thermal shock or hardening of metals.

And if he thinks emry cloth is a suitable answer to scratches in the bore u need to remind him its not a 50 hp atmo engine in a bucket of shit.

[tm_r33]

u mean to tell me that after 20 minutes the plugs was still to hot to touch???

I dont know how the plug didnt f**king melt if he kept the oxy on it for long enough to get it that hot. I would near bet that the alloy the plug is made from is not exacly in ideal condition after a fight with an oxy

[jarrod83]

Dont think it makes much difference but i just want to clear up that it wasnt the metal that cracked but the white ceramic insulator nose surrounding the electrode, on the NGK site it does say if the spark plugs get too hot, that the white ceramics do break, i might send them an email on their oponion on the matter. Id say they cracked and as soon as the engine fired up they fell off with the pressure of combustion.

When i first started the engine after putting the plugs back in it was a bit more noiser than usual for the first 20secs, which i found unusual and mentioned to him..

I am a bit pessimistic on a light sand fixing the problem, i'll see what my engine builder has to say tomorrow :S most of the marks are very light.. but there are a few that are pretty deep.

Jarrod

[our12]

Hi.

I wouldnt be to concerned with the tops of the pistons just put them back in with a new set of rings.That damage is miniscule from the photos. The bore doesnt appear from the photos to have any honing marks unlike the other bore shown. Also there is an area on the left hand side which looks like it wasnt honed correctly. No hone marks are usually an indication of either a tight piston /ring combination maybe gapped incorrectly compared with other bores which have honing. Another indication is the light scoring which may have already been present before your problems. I would remove the valves and check none are bent.

Take the engine to your engine builder or machine shop and have them measure it up and report on it you may get away with a very light hone. The other thing to be checked is your bottom end which may need some attention depending how long it ran after the oil pump stopped pumping.

[DVS JEZ]

did u find any bits of ceramic in the oil?

wat caused the oil pump to fail?

[FineLine]

Its threads like this that make me wish we could name and shame.

[Trozzle]

Its threads like this that make me wish we could name and shame.

QFT

[GTRNUR]

agreed. 1 is an unfortunate occurrance.

5 is a mistake that needs some responsibility.

re the block...the scoring doesn't look good, but you will need a machine shop to check out whether it just needs a hone or a bore out. either way its not really a problem to reuse up to about 87mm.

1 out of 6 and you could put it down to bad luck, or a manufacturer fauly (if they were new), but because they were 2nd hand already... then you would put it down to posibly one having been dropped. But 5/6! Thats definatly an indicator that something WRONG was done to all of the plugs, and you were just lucky it didnt happen on all 6 cylinders.

The guy that sprayed them with the carbie cleaner.. im not even sure if he is employed there, as they were working on a drag car together :S although the tuner was there overwatching.. oh and the spark plugs had cooled down a good 20 mins before they were sprayed.. but they were still a little hot to handle..

Jarrod

And theres your answer right there. It would be interesting to see whats left of the plugs too. Mainly to see if the center electrode insulators just fell apart completely.

This reminds me of something I did as a kid when collecting marbles was all the rage. You could heat up a mable with a cigarette lighter, and then drop it in a glass of water. This would induce thermal shock cracks all through the insideof the mable and give it a fractured/crystal sort of internal appearance(which was cool when your 5 yrs old). This also made them very fragile as it was only the outer skin of the mable that was barely holding the glass marble together....

This is what your mechanic has done to your plugs. Stress cracks all through the ceramics, so they will have fallen apart very quickly the moment they were exposed to vibration and heat. The cracks also are an electrical weakness in the insulator as well, providing a pathway for the plug to break down. Frankly its a miricale that the plugs didnt let go on all 6 cylinders.

[tm_r33]

exactly right.

[The Mafia]

And ceramic is hard shit, so it will wreck everything inside an engine.

[James_03]

I just can't see how a reputable workshop would do something like this. You say that it was someone there that "might not even work there" that cooled the plugs off, why was he even touching them in the first place?

I personally wouldn't name the workshop if I were you, because chances are there is a different story to this. It's just somewhat un-clear as to who actually did this to the plugs, and then how it came about that you were fitting the plugs to the car and not them.

If this was common practice for them, then this would have blown up in there face long before you came along, know what I mean?

Edited August 16, 2010 by James_03

[Crans]

Ceramic vs ceramic Head and pistons were ceramic coated but the plugs won.

Quickest removal of an engine Jarod and i just figured out why. This is the first time we have ever worked on a car without a beer in our hands.

Edited August 16, 2010 by Crans

[jarrod83]

looking back on the facts on how many ppl say its a bad idea to heat them up that way i cant see either why he said that heating them up that way was fine, i still dont like my chances of getting them to pay for any of the damage. Ill explain the story out in full...

Two days before my tune i did all the basic things like check coolant level, bought some more motul 8100, swapped filter, while i was down at auto one i was talking to a friend that i know has a mid 400hp drift skyline and asked what plugs he used and asked him to order me a set. The next day ive gone in to pick them up, payed for them and walked out to the car, in which i noticed they were 5's, i walked back in the store querying the heat range as i know its the same heat range as the standard plug and way too hot for my application and that i usually use 7s. i was told a story that the NGK's work in reverse to bosch plugs and that a 5 was infact a colder plug. Left it at that installed them and drove the car to the tuner in the early hours the next morning.. went over all the basics and as i was leaving i rememberd about the spark plugs that i was a bit concerned about. So i said to him that i was recommended some v notch ngk5's and that i was concerned about the heat range as i usually run 7s. He confirmed my worry and said that they run 8s in there car.. im not a 100% sure on this part but im pretty sure he checked if he had any 7s for me but didnt, i then said that i had some 7s at home that had fouled up on me and that i would just soak them in fuel quickly, clean them up and drop them in.. in which he said to just bring them down and he would wave the oxy over them free of charge ( since i was installing them ) and that it burns the oil right off them and that it brings them up like new and that theyve done it before.. so i agreed and went home to get the plugs and some tools. Got back there walked in and gave him the plugs, he heated them up with a pair of pliers and the oxy, i waited around for 5 mins waiting for the plugs to cool down before i realised that i could go get the car ready fro the plugs to go in. So i pulled out the old plugs and went back inside, in which i askd him if they had cooled down enough yet to handle, he briefly picked one up and was like yeh they are handliable, i started picking them up and by the time i got to the third one i realised that they were still fairly hot. This is when the other guy that im pretty sure doesnt work there as he owns the car they were working on, comes over with a rag and some carbie cleaner and gives them a spray to cool them down, i then went and installed them on the car.

Looking back now it seems retarded and i cant believe i allowed them to do it, at the time i assumed that they had been around drag cars alot longer than me and knew what they were doing, especially when he said he had done it before.

DVS32R- nah i didnt find any ceramic bits in the oil, but it had crossed my mind that it may of caused the oil pump failure

GTRNUR- i couldnt agree more, thats pretty much exactly what happened, as the car made a horrible noise as soon as it was turned on

ill get some more photos, the ones i took were facing the intake side.. the exhaust side is shocking :S

Jarrod

[jarrod83]

wouldnt that waiver to damages to ur car whilst tuning that alot of places get you to sign when they are tuning your car cover them anyway in this instance? =/

Jarrod

[Adriano]

Ive seen people oxy plugs before, usually rotary plugs or platinums, as when they foul they shouldnt be cleaned with emery, and they are expensive. However woth the oxy takes about 10 seconds to do all 6, you just wave a light oxidising flame over them, just enough to burn the oil/fuel.

Unfortunately as he oxy'd them for free, you probably cant sue him.

[jarrod83]

took the block to the machine shop for now, hes said the pistons are more than likely alrite, will just need a clean up, but 2 of the bores are f*kd and will need sleeving.. is it worth fixing the block or just start again?

He couldnt believe that 5 out of 6 of them broke tho, he had heard of ppl giving them a light going over with a oxy but never to the point where they were glowing red.. and suggested that it may of been deliberately done

Jarrod