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Is this carbon tracking?

G

getsum111

Yes I am a Pirate, 200 years too late.
Joined
Apr 5, 2005
Messages
4,188
Location
Pillaging in Freedom, PA.
I've been having a misfire issue for a while now. New plugs(APP764), new wires (Taylor Thundervolts), tried several coil swaps. I pulled the wires today, and all three wires on the firewall side have these marks. Is this what carbon tracking looks like? I've never seen it first hand. What would cause this. The plugs/wires are less than 3 months old. I put some morre dielectric grease in the boots, car runs 10x better. So why would this happen?

carbon1al4.jpg


carbon2ec9.jpg


Thanks.
 
Yeah, sorrry about the fuzziness. This was more of a powdery line, but got pretty wide near the base. There were also little black marks on the plugs, those DID look like little ticks were made with a pencil. What causes carbon tracking in new plugs/wires?:shrug:
 
Yes, that is carbon tracking!

Yes, that is carbon tracking!

Your car must have been barely running with all 3 rear cylinders like that:eek: I had one cylinder (#2) do that and had nice surging at 2300 rpm. Caused by imperfect cleanliness, lack of dielectric grease and possibly just didn't have the boot clicked on. The spark takes the easy path which happened to be outside..If you have low resistance wires, that might cause more carbon tracking from more voltage received at plugs. If you cleaned out the boots and silicone greased and installed new plugs, should now be good.
 
I just had a hesitation from off idle to about 3000 rpm. :shrug: Was getting a bit worse each day. I cleaned the boots and put new grease in, but put in the old plugs as they were so new. :shrug: :blackeye: How much trouble will that cause?
 
i have seen that before on the hondas (i work at a honda dealer) and it usually is associated with water getting down in the spark plug tubes, did you wash, or have the engine washed recently?
 
The dielectric grease will keep water out. If it runs good, no surging or reluctance to accelerate at 35-40 2300 rpm (3rd or 4th gear, I can't remember due to not driving the MTX car lately) it is OK for now. You will get probably the same problem again unless you were able to clean off the carbon tracks from the plugs.
 
I'm trying to be a "half full" type of guy. Look at how much I'm helping the spark plug industry during these difficult economic times. :laugh:

Seriously, I've been dealing w/ ignition issues for so long it's a shame. I just wonder what caused all this to start? :shrug: :confused: :mad: I never even had a CEL till this started, LAST NOVEMBER!!!:mad: Each time I search, half the threads I found were started by me. :laugh:
 
Wonder if the car has a harness issue. If the plug wires I buy have die. grease I'll use it but I won't go out of the way to use it. Usually get about 40-60k out of wires on a Contour.
 
I never used it before. I had 111K miles on my stock wires, so when I did my very first UIM/LIM rebuild, I got "the very best" wires, Magnecors. :help: :mad: :nonono: :cry: Drove very well for about 7/8 months. Then got my first CEL, replaced rear O2, developed the misfire soon after. I thought wiring too, but every sensor and injector checks out. (used a noid light to confirm)

Just tired of buyin' stuff that doesn't fix it.
 
ROTFL. Good picture Todras. :laugh: For those who don't know, spark plug noid is a real and correct term for a spark plug "checker". You plug it into the plug wires and if it lights up, you know it is not an electrical issue (power, wiring or coil).
 
...this was common when we had dist caps for plug wires.A short term fix is 1)Scrape/dig out all the carbon in the crack etc,it must be 100% clean and dry. 2)Get some clear shellac and with a small bush paint it into the crack.Allow to dry between coats,build it up a few layers...This will insulate on high voltage and prevent water ingress and shorting...Used this a million times in my 'ol days...when I was too broke to buy a new cap for the Mini Cooper '1275' 'S' or the 'ol 'Big Healey' I had...years ago!!!TH
 
More or less I've been going through the same thing as you. I would change the plugs and the car would run great for about 3 weeks and then it would start hesitating just off idle to about 3000 or 3500 rpms.

Then I threw new plug wires at the car with the same plugs and it worked great for about another week, then the hesitation came back. I checked the coil pack and it was just outside of the tolerances listed on the Autozone web site. I got a used coil pack that tested good, cleaned the contacts on the coil pack for the plug wires and installed it along with another set of new plugs.

Car runs like a bear now. Haven't had a problem in about 3 months. I also did an UIM/LIM cleaning which helped a lot too. I should have done that before the plugs were changed...but she still runs good despite that. Maybe what you should do is replace a few things at the same time. It seems as though the coil pack was causing the plugs to not fire right, so I replaced them both and all is great.
 
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