If my PCV valve is no good, would that cause the plug to be black near the threads, and completely white on the end?

 

How do you drive the car and how has it been running?

My chart shows that it could be pre-ignition (may hear pinging sound) or the wrong heat range.

Have you put a better intake or exhaust on?

 

His signature says "all stock".

Kev, have you ever seen the comparison pics in the back of a Chilton or Haynes manual? Ususlly if they are really white, means you are lean (fuel delivery problem). If they are black on the electrode, then you have a problem running rich (again fuel delivery but not enough, or spark is weak). The black on the threads is fairly common. I have had plugs last me over 70k miles (standard single-electrode steel), and the only problem I saw with them was the electrode had disintegrated so much theat my gap had opened up to more than .010" too much! This was causing a mis-fire and was turning the end of the electrode white. Go get you a set of cheap plugs (I use AutoLites), and put them in, and pull them back out after a few hundred miles and see what they look like.

Here is some more info, just from typing "What color should a spark plug be?" in Google...
http://www.dragstuff.com/techarticle...ark-plugs.html

And an image search...
http://images.google.com/images?sour...=1&sa=N&tab=wi

Normal spark plug color...


Hope this helps .

 

Hmm.. Mine are a little bit whiter than that.. They are cheap plugs, same price as AC Delco at my local Canadian Tire, The only reason I bought them, was because the AC Delco didn't have the right part number for my car, and the Champions did, so I just went with them. They're only 4.99$ a set Canadian.

 

I think this was my problem... Can you pick out the bad plug?

 

man, that's nothing. I had a dodge spirit in my shop once, had a v6 init and the #2 cylinder (right rear) plug was in there for so long that the threads broke right off the rest of the plug. I pulled the center electrode and insulation and everything right out of the threads. Had to pull the head, drill it out and install a special spark plug rethread in the head to fix it...lesson learned...not everyone installs anti-seize when the install plugs.

 

When I changed my plugs I had 3 different types of plugs in my engine. There were 3 sets of 2 different plugs. One set was right, one was longer than the others but didn't hit the pistons, and another set was barely sitting in the cyl head. was surprised those plugs worked.