Went to the track this weekend, and my buds said i blew a light cloud of smoke when i shifted to 4th, i checked all my plugs and they are dry except piston 6...look at the pic,(excuse the orange plug I had VP octanium in the tank) it has oil but only halfway down the threads, how is the oil building up just like that...is this a bad piston ring, or valve seal or somthing else...

car has a cam, procharger running about 7psi with alkycontrol meth kit...I dont beat up on the car, and every time i go full throttle i data log and car has never seen any knock, its tuned by a very great tuner in New Braunfels TX.

 

I don't see anything on this plug that suggests oil fouling/consumption. Looks more like oil seeping into the threads from the outside (i.e. leaky valve cover gasket). The blue smoke (if it was truly blue) was likely oil being pulled in through the PCV system - do you have a catch can? It is possible it was being pulled in through the valve seals, but even if so, I would not worry about it with plugs looking that clean.

 

some oil on the threads is fine, if the plug was soaked in oil and the electrode etc was bathing in oil that's another story. Your plug looks fine.

Maybe compression test it.

 

JAW DROPPING FACTS!

Pop off the air bridge and while you have everything apart go ahead and clean the throttle blade and MAF.

WHILE,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, You have everything apart, grab a good flashlight and pop open that throttle blade and look deep inside the intake manifold at the FLOOR of the intake manifold.



If yours is like 90% of other C5 owners, it will be a swimming pool of OIL.

Unless you are taking some aftermarket measures to control oil through the PCV system, that oil will be an ever present issue.

When you reach certain air flow velocities inside the intake manifold, the vacuum, air flow patterns, turbulences or even hard acceleration/braking events ect ect, can cause SOME of that oil to be disturbed and drawn into the intake tract. THUS, PUFFs of smoke under specific events.

Just ONE of the things that I have seen that can cause high spirited driving visual oil burning..

Also do a COMPLETE look at the PVC piping and PCV valve and make sure that it not compromised.

Have you ever drained your intercooler (hopefully it has a drain) and checked for any accumulations of oil?

Some aftermarket valve guide seals and valve springs don't live harmoniously together and the springs can dislodge the valve seal. Give that a look see.

Just brain storming..

Bill

 

Bill I've seen your response with the same ideas in a couple of threads like this on various forums, I just can't understand how the oil would be on the top of the threads and not on the bottom near the electrode

 

Feeder82

My main concern and commet was the PUFF OF SMOKE when he changed gears.

The oil on the threads is insignificant and means nothing. In my opinion, the exhaust gasses leak by the plug seat and the area that is wet/dark is where the gasses condense. If you don’t have any excessive oil on the plug well area where the plug screws into, it’s not coming in from the outside.

If someone put some sort of lubricant on the plug threads, the dry area of the plug is the HOT part of the plug and that compound could have been burnt off or pushed to the seat end of the plug and the wet area is the colder part of the plug where is collects..

Im no plug expert but, those are a couple of ways that "I believe" is the reason that the oil / grease/ dark spot is there.

The insignificant amount of oil that you are burning usually doesn’t leave many deposits on the electrode/anode of the plug. If it was oil fowling, you would really see a lot of deposits.

 

insignificant is what I wanted to hear.

 

Henderson tune?

 

Thanks for all the replies, i guess i shouldnt worry too much about it....and yes tuned at Henderson

 

I've seen plugs like that, from good running cars, many times. Possibly the plug wasn't quite tightened to "spec", and you got a little "oil blow-by".

 

plugs look tuned rather well honestly

that orange you have looks like an additive, possibly the meth

 

its from running VP octanium octane booster

 

that would explain it