Good point! The white ceramic part looks like they were exposed to oil and excessive heat. Being a year 2000 car, I wonder if the original owner got the spark plug recall done early. It's possible he car has been driven for long miles with loose plugs and neither owner knew that not only were the plugs updated but so was the torque for screwing them in.

 

brown residue was dirty dielectric grease i think. plugs were not loose. I also still have the original honda "s" marked plugs i removed in december, they look the same (black)

not sure, but i think there was a vafc on at one point in its life before I bought it.

Guess i'll look into getting it to a dealer somehow. I definetly can't drive it the 50miles to the closest one.

 

In that case, your current problem could just be inherited from the O2 sensor which was toasted by previous bad VAFC tune.

Depending on how good the dealer is diagnosing the problem, it could be the best way to have this fixed. Alternatively, you can try decarbonizing the combustion chambers, replacing the O2 sensor and plugs. In either case, keep monitor the plug status once the problem is fixed. When you see the ceramic portion of the plug inside the combustion chamber is getting black again, you know the problem is not fixed at its root.