Car sluggish/powerless

[Clueless]

Lately, my car hasn't been the car it always been, now sluggish and powerless. I decided to check the timing and it seems to be ok, so I pulled the plugs. cylinder one and two are fine, but when I get to three and four, they are coated in oil(dripping wet). My thought might've been "change the valve cover gasket", but I've done that already and it wouldn't effect the performance anyway. I'm thinking something serious like bent valves or worn piston rings, I really don't know. Another thing, it just started happening about two or three weeks ago out of the clear blue.

Please help as I'm tired of driving with a malfunctioning car(embarressing), and everybody things I drive like an old grandma.

Caleb

[xaxis360]

It sounds like you have a internal oil leak which could be either the piston rings or the head gasket. $$$. Are you getting blue smoke from the exhaust?

[xtremeskier97]

You need to replace more than just the valve cover gasket. You need to replace the upper and lower spark plug tube seals. Those are what the oil is leaking past causing oil to accumulate in the spark plug holes.

Now...whether or not this will help with your "sluggish" problem, Im not sure. I dont think it will, unless your spark plugs are getting really fouled by all the oil leaking past the seals.

Goog luck. Replacing those seals is not hard. There is a write up on it in the DIY I think, or maybe somewhere else on the forums. I just read it the other day. Quite easy.

[Clueless]

I don't know if I'm getting any blue smoke or not(Can't watch while I'm driving)... the piston rings is the only thing I think may contribute to the sluggish problem and I notice a lot of oil on the backside of the engine so head gasket might be a problem too. I was planning on rebuilding the engine anyway because it has 205,000 miles and I want to turbo it later on.

Any other input would be helpful as I may start tearing it down for a rebuild(Maybe).

Caleb

[mrhonda]

205K is nothing dude, here's what you got....

oil in spark plug tubes - lower tube seals (easy enough)

oil on back-side of engine - camshaft seal (you'll need to do a t-belt, waterpump, and seals)

sluggish performance - probably just needs a good tune-up (also reletively easy)

if you think it might be burning some oil, just do a compression test to see what kind of condition the rings are in

[Clueless]

205K is nothing dude, here's what you got....

oil in spark plug tubes - lower tube seals (easy enough)

oil on back-side of engine - camshaft seal (you'll need to do a t-belt, waterpump, and seals)

sluggish performance - probably just needs a good tune-up (also reletively easy)

if you think it might be burning some oil, just do a compression test to see what kind of condition the rings are in

I know 205k is nothing, but stuff happens. I've did the t-belt and water pump, long before I've had this problem. I'll do a compression check tomorrow if I remember... wish me luck.


Caleb

[green5thgen]

Something that is commonly overlooked is when there's oil in the spark plug tubes, the wires can soak up oil themselves making the spark very, very weak. Try changing your plug wires with a buddys or with a cheap set. This doesn't seem like much, but it's deffinately worth a try.

[mrhonda]

Something that is commonly overlooked is when there's oil in the spark plug tubes, the wires can soak up oil themselves making the spark very, very weak. Try changing your plug wires with a buddys or with a cheap set. This doesn't seem like much, but it's deffinately worth a try.

This is very true, the oil swells up the wires and causes severe missfires as well as a weak spark. However if you don't replace the lower tube seals to correct this problem, oil will continue to leak and destroy the new wires as well.

[Clueless]

This is very true, the oil swells up the wires and causes severe missfires as well as a weak spark. However if you don't replace the lower tube seals to correct this problem, oil will continue to leak and destroy the new wires as well.

I never did think of this before.... looks like somebody gonna get a new set of boshc wireplug! I slap my old plug wire on to check this problem....

Caleb

[starchland]

yeah i would check the basics first. Damn i need to do my spark plug seal rings too.

[Clueless]

Update...

Reinstalling my old plug wires increase performance(I think), so I gotta fix the leak soon, or it's gonna cost me money... Still have done compression test yet, so I'll try to do that tomorrow.

Caleb