Hey guys so I was having some misfiring issues in my last thread and had a local mechanic pop out the plugs to check what was going on, diagnostics showed up multiple cylinder misfires but when that was cleared only cylinder 4.

Anyway he popped them open but didn't use a torque wrench it seems to close it back up.

So a week has gone by and the misfire got worse and I thought to get the plugs pulled again and try and clean them as the first check was just a quick check.

Low and behold when we popped open cylinder 4 a bit of the spark plug has cracked and I have no idea what to do.

The mechanic tried to blow some compressed air down the hole to see if anything would pop out but nothing, his second suggestion is to try a vacuum clean and try and suck up any bits.

My question is seeing as this may have happened over the course of a week and I have been driving around like this whats the worst case scenario and is there a possibility this bit has come out through the exhaust system?

I have attached a pic of the culprit plug and also a normal plug for comparison.




The following error codes were also recorded
273F IGNTION COIL, CYLINDER 4 INGITION CIRCUIT MONITORING
2F37 AUXILIARY WATER PUMP ACTIVATION
2779 COMBUSTION MISFIRES CLYINDER 4
2775 COMBUSTION MISFIRES CLYINDER 3
2A56 OXYGEN SENSOR HEATER AFTER CATALYTIC CONVERTER FUNCTION
273D IGNITION COIL, CYLINDER 1 IGNITION CIRCUIT MONITORING

ON THE DATA STREAM
FUEL INJECTION TIMING CLYINDER 1 0.90MS
CYLINDER 2 0.95ms
CYLINDER 3 0.97ms
CYLINDER 4 0.83

Smooth running value
cly 1 0.11 1/s
cly 2 0.54 1/s
cly 3 -0.30 1/s
cly 4 -0.02 1/s

Look forward to hearing your guys suggestions and comments even though I am dreading the worst.

 

Had an old Triumph Spitfire (1975) that the plugs would lose pieces of the insulator.

Never the whole thing. Never seemed to cause a problem though.

 

Have you tried running a magnet-on-a-stick into the spark plug hole?

Best of luck,

Spridget

 

+1 Or even a magnet on a spring. The bit of the plug should be the only magnetic piece.

 

Hopefully it makes it out the exhaust valve without any damage to the valve or valve seat. Maybe do a compression test to see if there is any difference between cylinders. If its been a week and its running fine and a compression test passes then I would say its over but I dont know why a plug would do that. Are you running 87 octane by chance? Could be preignition.

 

Don't want to bum you out, but read THIS.

 

You need to get a bore scope and look at the inside of the cylinder. If your mechanic doesn't have one, go to someone that does.

 

For that little electrode piece, yes. There's a good shot it's already out of the combustion chamber.
But as others have suggested, get a bore scope or mini-snake camera and inspect the cylinder from the inside.

Time to, again, suggest a more frequent spark plug change as it appears the heat cycles on the plugs are making them fatigue and fail.

Marques, how many miles on the car? I assume original (factory installed plugs?

- Erik

 

It's probably been blown out by now. Worst it can do is get caught between a valve as it closes but you would know that by now.

 

Hey guys thanks so much for all the help, I really wanted to the change over of sparks from the day I bought it 3 months ago. But as I am in Zimbabwe Africa availability is none existent hell there is only one other r56 in the country, And 2 r53s haha so spares don't come by easy.

I will defo be doing a compression test on the weekend I am off to South Africa to pick up some spares.

The plugs are original I believe and it's an 07 on 35k miles. I've been using 93 octane but I am sure knowing this place the quality is probably less.

I will keep you guys posted but I really appreciate all the help and input.