Went to change my plugs and it took about ~2.5 hours. The very first plug, as I pull it out, I look at it and it looks like this.



Those little ceramic bits at the side? Yeah, they fell in the cylinder. I spent the next couple hours duct taping straws to the shop vac and sticking it in there to pull them out. Then a baja fresh straw (a bigger diameter straw). Then I just put the shop vac where the coil pack goes and tried sucking them out. Then I put the straw/duct tape/shop vac on the blow side and tried to blow the pieces out.

Finally, I held down the pedal and turned to key to turn the engine over without sparking while holding the shop vac on it.

I finally got all the frickin' ceramic pieces out (I think) and installed the new NGK one step colder plugs. Took it out for a spin, idles fine, but at boost >10psi it misfires. So, now I'm going to take the plugs back out, check the gaping, and see what there is there.

Gah, changing plugs is going to end up being a 5 hour job by the time I'm done. Horrible.

 

anyproblems before changing them?

 

Nope, no problems before changing them. To add to the story, the check engine light was on and whenever boost >10psi it almost feels like one of the pistons cuts out and the engine is only running on 3 pistons. So I took all the plugs back out and checked the gaps. The gaps were all somewhere between .027-.029. So, thinking I had found the problem I re-gapped them to .031. So, if you can guess, of course the problem persisted/became worse.

I'm also worried that I didn't get all the ceramic bits out. I was as careful as I could be, but even so, what if I missed a little piece? Thoughts?

Question: If the check engine light came on and the car was put in some sort of limp mode to avoid misfires and then I regapped the plugs, is it possible that it's not misfiring at all and I just need to clear the CEL?

 

WOW. I had the same problem with the misfire problem. My problem came at about 5500 rpm. It would start backfiring and the power would fall off. I took my plugs out and they were done. I put Denso iridium plugs and no problems. Runs hard all the way to redline at 7000.

 

I wouldn't work too much. They'll get crunched up and pushed out the exhaust.

 

sounds like you have a bigger problem than plugs how many miles do you have on your car scan the code it might just tell you what is wrong you might have a bad coil pack, and them small parts of the spark plugs shouldn't hurt anything prob blow out the exhaust

 

I would check the coil on the one that destroyed the plug. More than likely your coil is shorting to ground before the electrode, which would cause the ceramic to break.

 

lol my motor had a problem keep mine in the head!

 

is that NGK or ACDelco spark plug that you recently pulled out with all the cermanic being shattered?

 

OP did you try to rebuild the plug to see if you missed any BIG chunks of the insulator?

 

do you guys use spark plug sockets? they have a rubber gasket in them to hold the spark plug in while pulling it out or putting it in? because I use them it saved my ass on my escape spark plug change as its ceramic was broke as well.

 

This ^.

This as well. Ive NEVER had a plug fall apart while using a spark socket. And yes, some of them were broken. Maybe i just got lucky. but a fresh spark socket holds it tight enough for me it wont fall out

 

Are you sure? I think I got them all out, but won't they damage my piston rings?

I'll get the code scanned to see what's up. I just had my car in for warranty work on the shifter, so hopefully it's not the coil pack. I'm going to try switching the plugs back to regular plugs to see what happens.

Good thought.

The one that was shattered was the original ACDelco plug that came with the car. This is the first time I changed plugs.

Did do...in the pic you can see the plug and the two big chunks of ceramic next to it. The other chunks were really tiny, but it seems to rebuild.

I do now!

 

[QUOTE=tglems;4800236]Are you sure? I think I got them all out, but won't they damage my piston rings?



no. your rings will be okay. its not advisied to run stuff through the cylinder though. if anything itll just nick up the top of pistn a tiny bit, then be pushed right through.

 

Thanks for the reassurance. I've been freaking out thinking that the bits of ceramic would tear my engine up and I'd be bringing it to the shop, explaining to them why I needed the whole top end taken off and new piston rings!

 

Ceramic isn't going to toast a cyl.......................... Thats what I would of done lol Ive seen bigger pieces then spark plug fragments come out the exhaust...

 

It won't toast a cylinder, but that CAN'T be good for the turbo to run bits of Ceramic through it.

Remember, ceramic is incredibly strong in compression, so it won't easily get "crunched up" into tiny pieces. If it gets stuck between two objects (like the turbo impeller and the housing), you may end up with issues.

Personally, if that had been me, I'd have probably pulled the head off to make sure that I got everything. Paying for a new head gasket and studs is much cheaper than paying for a new turbo.

 

to be honest i never even thought about his turbo. that is a good point though. OP i would take it easy on her for like a week if you can. just so that IF it does get ingested it won't be under boost/load which would probably make for one unhappy turbo.

 

Hmm...If it does get stuck in the turbo, I'm assuming I'd have to take the turbo off and clean it out? Because when I test drove it anything above 10psi boost just chatters hard. I was thinking it was a misfiring issue, but it could be that the turbo is having problems spinning up. Would this clear itself out of the turbo after a bit or does it need to be taken off and cleaned?

 

If it did get into the turbo (which is likely), it's not going to be a matter of cleaning it. you're going to most likely have to replace or rebuild the Turbo. Those ceramic pieces could easily have damaged the blades and when a blade gets damaged, it damages the blades around it. Now your turbo impeller is unbalanced and spinning at 20k RPMs. It'll just tear itself apart. That is probably why it's not pushing past 10 psi of boost.

 

no bueno Tyler if its in the turbo :/

 

your probably fine, it probably coughed em out idling.... if the turbo was red hot and they shot thru you may pit some fins, but if the snail was cold, it would come right thru, maybe get stuck in your cat or muffler

 

I didn't see it asked, so here it goes...how the hell did it break in the first place?

 

this is an epic failure, simple change the plugs has become an engine destruction..

the valves are not going to be happy either if they close on the ceramic, it could hold the valve open and smack the piston and bend it, also chip the valve or dent the seat causing a leak.

if you could not reassemble the ceramic to ensure it was all out the head you should have removed the cylinder head to be sure.

at this point you want to do a cylinder leak down and make sure the valves and piston are ok.

 

Lots of misinformation in this thread. People are scaring others really bad.

Well i fixed the problem for now. 1st got in the car. Codes p0300 and p0302. Took it for a drive and idle and normal driving is ok. Can't do any WOT cause it flashes the ses and no boost. Obviously had a severe misfire. Checked the plugs. 2nd plug starting fron the pass(upper mount) was broken again just like in the pic. Swith the coils around and rechecked all the plugs. Put back in the 3 NGK's and one Autolite he bought for the car. test drove again. Car was perfect. Got 2 WOT pulls just fine. On 3rd pull at top of 3rd it tripped the ses again and flashed. Brought it back. No cracked plugs and they looked good. Now throwing p0300, p0301, p0304. Car isn't liking the plugs. Put 3 stock plugs back in with one NGK. Car is perfectly fine now after many WOT pulls.

Turbo and engine are fine. Car just isn't taking well to the NGK's at all. Just gonna put a new set of stock plugs back in it and call it a day.