suggestion, as Kane stated earlier,

Coils on plugs right? coil contacts clean and in good shape contacting spark plug? wire connector on coil ok?

 

the white "ash" marks you are seeing are likely from burnt oil. from the sounds of it (you indicated oil on the threads) oil is obviously getting into the engine. you're getting random misfire codes, a very rough idle, tapping noises, etc. why are you even still trying to drive this car?

you need to get this car into a dealership NOW. if you don't, then you're going to end up spending like $8000 to buy a new engine. your priority should be avoiding destroying your entire engine and then having no car at all for a long time, rather than getting to work on a limping engine.

 

Its cheaper to rent a car for a couple of days than buy a new engine.

 

Let's analyze this situation instead of getting emotional.

I'm assuming
a) Your car ran fine before all of this, though it burnt a little too much oil, supposedly.
Therefore, what you did could cause
a) Damaged plugs
b) Stripped head
c) Poor/damaged electrical connections to the plugs

That is IT.

Now, even if driving with all these messed up, your car would run like sh**, but it wouldn't hurt anything. All the codes you told us refer to a-c that I mentioned.

So, given all the information you gave us, I think getting someone who knows what they are doing to put NEW OEM plugs in correctly, will solve your problems.

HOWEVER, that does NOT explain why there is oil in the threads of the sparkplugs. The white isn't a big deal, most plugs have some discoloration and few people know what to look for.

There is only 1 somewhat logical way there is oil on some of your plugs. You obviously loosened them too much at one point. You ran your engine and since it apparently burns a little oil it threw some up in the threads since the plug was too loose. You may have retightened them to make the amount of oil on the plugs increase at one point. I'd put all new plugs in and let the car run gently. If there is truly a major problem with your engine causing this, and it isn't the plugs, then it won't many any difference because the labor to fix it is = to or > than a used engine.

Good luck!

 

*side note* a flashing cel means the misfire is bad enough to damage your catalict converter. not your engine directly. your not gonna spin a bearing or bend a valve or something. youre just dumping too much unburned fuel into your cat and the chemical reaction that takes place will overheat the cat and melt/destroy it. ever see a converter thats red hot? thats from the excessive amounts of raw fuel in it. im not saying go ahead and drive it untill next year before you get it fix. im just saying it's not gonna blow up your engine. but it will cost you big money. a new cat from honda is almost 4 digits.

 

lol...mis-information at its finest

 

How about unburnt fuel in the cylinders "washing out" and destroying them (scoring), that'll throw a flashing CEL/MIL. Billman250 just enlightened me to this recently.

 

unburnt fuel can "wash" the cylinder walls and dilute out the lubricating oils held in the oil ring of the piston. The unlubed walls wouldn't be protected and the top rings/piston skirts are going to grind together from the friction. Eventually this can trigger a misfire MIL from the outcome of it.

 

I would think the MIL/CEL would be triggered by the actual misfire in the cylinder. The "washing out" would occur after the MIL/CEL was already triggered no?

 

[QUOTE=sahtt,Feb 16 2006, 05:08 PM] Let's analyze this situation instead of getting emotional.

I'm assuming
a) Your car ran fine before all of this, though it burnt a little too much oil, supposedly.
Therefore, what you did could cause
a) Damaged plugs
b) Stripped head
c) Poor/damaged electrical connections to the plugs

That is IT.