I pulled my plugs today and all of them were frosty white. They looked like there was a lot of granulated corrosion all over them. What the hell did I do to my car to do this?

Can bad plugs cause your engine to knock? What makes your engine knock?

 

do a search. i forget which color = bad. it's either brown or white IIRC.

 

Well I know from doing a search before I posted.
that white isn't good, but I don't know what people mean by blistering. The just look rough(like sandpaper) and white. How do I make the car run richer? If my car is running too lean?

 

It was running lean, and what type of plugs were you using? there is another thread going around right now that says 50% of Maxima's, I would guess I30's also, have problems with non-NGK plugs. Mine had the same problem among other problems that I think are related to the Bosch Plat. plugs, and with the NGKs I know the car is smoother and it doesn't knock, not that I really heard it before, but it could have been.

 

those were NGK's from the dealer 35k miles old. The electrode and hook thing were brown in the center where they face each other. Then the rest of the hook thing was just crusty and white. I replaced them with some other NGK's, and the car does run smoother. I just don't want to do harm to my car. Someone said that when it's white it means my car is running to lean, how do I adjust my car to run richer? I was under the assumption that the ECU did this, but if it does how do I get it to adjust.

 

ECU should adjust to it, how often do you run in the high rev range? This could cause it. Typically mods will make the car run more rich (from what I have been told), although I didn't experience it. Other than that you may want to check your fuel pump or fuel system in general to make sure that your car is getting everything it needs. An injector cleaning on mine after 25K showed that mine were really dirty, it was worth the $70. I haven't pulled mine to see how they are wearing, but I don't notice anything weird now.

 

would this cause engine knock? I do race the engine often, whenever I'm at the track

 

Running lean is something that will cause the engine to knock. I am assuming that you are using high octane gas, lower octane is supposed (I don't know how many cases there are out there, everyone has their own opinion) to make it knock also, but the car should retard the timing.

 

I've always used the same octane gas, maybe I should try some fuel injector cleaner. I have been getting knock sensor ECU errors since I put my CAI on 2 weeks ago

 

White = Bad, engine is burning too lean, could burn up your pistons
Black = engine is runnig too rich, but will not hurt your engine as if they were white
Golden = Good, not rich and not lean, engine is burning gas pefect

 

How do I prevent this from continuing?

 

You'll have to change your air/fuel mixture, I'm not sure how you would do this on a car, but I know on sportbikes you have to change the jetting, I know thats not much help to you though. It may have been the CAI you installed... more air has been entering the cylinders with the CAI then with stock air filter. Try new NGK plugs and see what they burn like.

 

Thats what I just pulled out of the engine. They were old, from either that cars conception or the 30k mile service. I don't know if Infiniti service replaces the plugs at 30k or not. My car currently has 66k miles on it

 

Well get new plugs, take you car for a hard drive, then take the plugs out again when you get home and see what they're like. If you wanted to you could try the plugs with the CAI, take them out, then try without the CAI and see if they are any different.