So I bought a semi-nice compression gauge the other day and decided that check out how my lovely VE-5 is doing. So I pulled the plugs and all there was oil on the all the plugs, but I blame that on the both valve cover gaskets pooping out... But my main concern what I found where the ceramic meets the metal body of the plug...

2012-08-15_21-32-36_112 by KenBob3, on Flickr


2012-08-15_21-33-12_467 by KenBob3, on Flickr
It looks like there is a compression leak on each plug from what I have found on the interwebs. Or maybe its just oil that is getting burned on the plug where coil boot isn't in contact...
And the compression reading for each cylinder was #1.183-184 #2.189-190 #3. 190 #4. 195 #5. 187-188 #6. 194-195 Which is above spec but not by much. I feel like that is GREAT for car with 195,500 miles on the clock!!

My question is, is it possible for all my plugs to crap out with only about 15,000 miles on them? As you can see they are NGK's but they are the bottom of the line platinums and not what is is specified in the FSM.

Thoughts??

 

If your plugs were covered in oil pretty easy to foul. Even running rich can cause them foul quickly. Back when I was tuning (turbo vg) I was super rich I Gould set of step colder ngk within 20 miles. Your numbers look good. Was that with motor cold or warm?

 

the plugs are fine, the engine has excellent compression... the oil pooling up around the tops is a common VE issue due to valve cover gasket failure....

 

looks like oil burning around the ceramic area from the leaking vc gasket. fix the obvious and then check again later...i bet the ceramics will be a lot cleaner.

 

20 miles? i think i went 2 miles before the car wouldn't run w/o some kind of assistance..LOL

 

I ended up 2 step colder plug. Ri
Inning good now.

 

yeah i was running super rich...got it leaned out and i was able to get more miles now. still working on it.

 

The engine had sat for about 2.5 hours before I even decided to pull off the coils... So by the time I was able to test the cylinders it was a little warmer than outside temp which was about 70F. But i'm still kinda struck at how high the readings were!! Maybe a little carbon build up...

 

I'm gonna have to go with this one. If you have blow by in compression that would blow the spark plug out of the head. Quite a bit of damage involved.