I'm not sure how many miles there are on the plugs. I don't drive the car all that often (it's been sitting since October). I think that the oil wetness is due to the oil cap coming off last summer and spewing oil all over the engine. I do notice a very faint fuel smell on the plugs, but nothing that is going to gag me or get me high. haha.

However, I suppose it is possible that it is running rich. I am not really sure how to tell on that one. I've never notice any fuel smell. I will monitor these plugs and see how they are. I just got the OEM NGK plugs.

I am a little worried that something is wrong internally that is causing the plugs to wear. I don't know the mileage but I might be able to figure it out. However it can't be more than about 20 or 25K miles. I've had the car since the summer of 06, and I changed them sometime after I got the car. But as I said, I don't drive the car that often...only in the summer. So hopefully there isn't something else going on.

Good idea for cleaning the plug holes. I'll give that a try.

 

If that was my engine is would not be worried one bit. What kind of activity dis the motor see before you pulled the plugs

 

I don't think you have anything wrong internally, they don't look that bad, the only reason for changing is that they are soaked in oil. After you put new plugs in, run them for 500 miles and them pull them out for a further inspection and see if the ring around the ground electrode is dry, the dark colour is normal as long as the surface is dry.

Don't waste your money on retainers when yours are fine, there isn't any benefit in changing perfectly healthy ap1 retainers. The spots on the retainers look like paint used at the assembly factory.

 

Make sure to read-up on sparkplugs for S2000 and the engine fatalities contributed to running NON - ...... 11S plugs.

You can't say you were not warned!


Siepel

 

you mean this car can only run one plug and that is it ?.

I'm really not concerned about these plugs as I'm in there checking them quite often, I don't throw in plugs and forget about them for 100,000 miles. I've re-checked the torque on them a few times already and they seem to be holding up fine. I probably won't leave them in there for more than 2 years anyhow, so I'm really not worried about it. Plugs are cheap maintenance items that I check frequently and replace frequently.

Thanks for the heads up on this one, I appreciate the helpful advice but I won't be changing the plugs that I'm using.

 

I checked mine and they are the 11S plugs.

 

You could wipe the plugs clean or even clean them with contact cleaner and use them in the mean time before you grab new plugs. You will notice some engine improvement changing to new plugs.

Even without blowby problems (oil cap blown off the valve cover), spark plugs would still get wet as oil seeps into the combustion chamber and into the spark plug threads, but not get burnt off.

The retainers look okay from the pictures, but it's really hard to tell from pictures. Sometimes micro-cracking or fractures cannot be seen in pictures.