93 Accord EX... Shattered Spark Plug
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Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 14
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From: Cincinnati, OH, USA
93 Accord EX... Shattered Spark Plug
Yesterday, I was driving out to get some lunch when I noticed I was idling a little rough and slow (about 400 rpm). I made a mental note to check the car out when I got home from work. On the way home, I was passing someone on the freeway when I felt the engine "give." Figuring I was running on 3 cylinders (and the fact my car sounded like an overgrown lawnmower), I immediately checked the car out as soon as I got home.
Long and short of it, the spark plug had shattered (into 4 pieces) and the plug wire had been blown out of the well, and was lying on my intake manifold. I spent a couple hours making sure I got every little bit of the plug out of the well (before unscrewing the base of the plug), and just put in a new plug to keep the car running so I could get to work today. The initial failure was at the interface between the threads (a meatl part) and the ceramic inner portion of the plug, allowing the piston compression stroke to blow out the top of the cylinder.
I've looked around and seen nothing even remotely similar to this on the web. Has anyone ever heard of anything like this before, and does anyone know what could have caused it?
Long and short of it, the spark plug had shattered (into 4 pieces) and the plug wire had been blown out of the well, and was lying on my intake manifold. I spent a couple hours making sure I got every little bit of the plug out of the well (before unscrewing the base of the plug), and just put in a new plug to keep the car running so I could get to work today. The initial failure was at the interface between the threads (a meatl part) and the ceramic inner portion of the plug, allowing the piston compression stroke to blow out the top of the cylinder.
I've looked around and seen nothing even remotely similar to this on the web. Has anyone ever heard of anything like this before, and does anyone know what could have caused it?
Honda-Tech Member
Joined: Apr 2002
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From: Cincinnati,, Oh
Re: 93 Accord EX... Shattered Spark Plug (crewfish13)
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by crewfish13 »</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> Has anyone ever heard of anything like this before, and does anyone know what could have caused it?</TD></TR></TABLE>
I've seen a couple of em do that: 1 civic and 1 accord. They both blew out the porcelain hard enough to put a dent in the hoods. No idea why they did it. Bad plug is my guess.
I've seen a couple of em do that: 1 civic and 1 accord. They both blew out the porcelain hard enough to put a dent in the hoods. No idea why they did it. Bad plug is my guess.
Honda-Tech Member
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 6,456
Likes: 10
From: New England, USA
Re: 93 Accord EX... Shattered Spark Plug (crewfish13)
Inner seal between porcelin and spark plug body failure comes to mind. This would occure early in the plugs useful life as it's more a manufacturing problem. I've seen some plugs so off-standard that the center electrode was off center in the body (never made it into the car).
Another possibility would be porcelin damage caused at installation from using a standard deep socket rather that a spark plug socket (pocelin cracks but is held together by the copper center electrode)
P
Another possibility would be porcelin damage caused at installation from using a standard deep socket rather that a spark plug socket (pocelin cracks but is held together by the copper center electrode)
P
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