i found a hairline crack on my spark plug. it split all the way down the ceramic piece. WHOA.

 

LOL - I over torqued a plug, going a little too happy the first day I got a torque wrench, and a couple of days later I was driving on the freeway heading home after going to a dinner with my gf. We were just crusing along and... "Boom!" and my car started to sound like a lawn mower so I immediately freaked out and pulled over and popped the hood. The #3 plug had shot out of my engine, snapping off after the threads... Luckily the ceramic was in one piece and the rest of the plug - the threads and tip were still threaded in... I was able to make it to a Lowes and pick up an Easy Out before they closed. Took out the threads and dropped in a old spare plug I had and everything ran perfect. I was freaked out when my engine emitted the big boom and then the loud as hell sputtering... That is how I learned to never over torque a spark plug, I just do them 1/4 turn past hand tight now.

 

whoa... over torquing is never a good thing...

 

the only time I broke a spark plug was when my valves broke and dropped to my piston.

 

I blew an electrode off when I was on nitrous a few years back

 

Me too. Nitrous blew one of my plugs up.

 

never personally done it, but I have seen an over zealous supra owner use an air guy and crack the porcelain, and another guy with a honda tried doing his when the motor was hot, it wouldnt budge, so he used a breaker bar - and sure enough, the bar did it's job. Snapped that bitch right off. Ended up taking him 300 bucks in labor and machine costs to change his plugs

 

Still not sure how it happened. Didnt happen till after tuning.

I may have damaged them while gapping

 

i've never cracked a plug, but i've melted/broken a few electrodes. i've been having problems with my N2O system and #4 has melted a few times due to lack of fuel.

half the electrode was missing or melted into one big clump. seems like N2O users have this problem at times.


[Modified by sweet, 10:36 PM 11/25/2002]

 

actually i have melted 3 plugs on one run at the track....i forgot to tighten the bolts on my distributor and it went fully advanced and i was running a 125 shot of nitrous on a stock b16... it was fast for a second, i ran a 13.6 on one cylinder(imaging if i had the rest of them sparking lol)j/k....... but i allways make sure i tighten them all the way now... there was no electrode left it was like a mound of metal..... i wish i had a better egt i would like to see the temp and the cylinder pressure on that run....they are mounted on my trophy case that is the day i became very impressed with honda motors if they can hold up to that on stock everything and still ran for 2 years after that with no problems that is one amazing motor......