My engine keeps doing this to spark plugs....
 

my car felt like it was pulling timing at higher RPM's at WOT in 5th and 6th gear for a week or two, so I just decided to see what it would do if I gave it some gas. I made 1 pull in 6th, then one in 5th, and then all hell broke loose. The car almost died, and started missing, backfiring, and stutter stepping all over the place. I pulled the spark plugs and found this on the 1st cylinder (far left, passenger side).

http://i476.photobucket.com/albums/r...sparkplug1.jpg

So I replaced all the plugs, gapped them correctly, and the car was running like new again. Well I ran it for a while, drove it around, and then decided to do some WOT logs to see if everything was back to normal. The log was done from 1500-7500rpm. The logs showed zero knock, but after two WOT pulls in 3rd gear, hell broke loose again. Exact same symptoms, so I pulled the plug on cylinder one again, and found this. This plug is about 5 hours old.

http://i476.photobucket.com/albums/r...rkplugnew1.jpg
http://i476.photobucket.com/albums/r...rkplugnew2.jpg

Notice that the gap is completely closed, and the tip is pretty much welded onto the top part. The other 3 plugs show normal wear, but they look fine as far as gap is concerned. What could be causing this? Any ideas? Anything I could possibly fix myself?

Looks like the piston is hitting the plug. Check your tbelt and make sure its aligned and NOT lose

I thought it could be a timing issue...but I didn't think the piston could physically hit the plug? I'll need to check that next. Anything else to check while I'm under there?

not physically possible. the spark plugs thread into the head. They remain in the same position at all times.

The rods attach to the crank rod journals and the rods do not change in size, therefore its physically impossible for a piston to go outside of its normal stroke and hit a spark plug, because the pistons are attached to the rod via a wristpin.

A timing belt is there to time the pistons with the valves so there is no valve contact with the pistons.

His picture is caused by severe detonation and if he keeps boosting with that problem its going put a hole in his block.

Since its only happening on cyl #1 it may be a fueling issue triggering the detonation. The fact its not showing knock counts means your filters must be jacked way up making the sensor useless.

If its not detonation or fuel or ignition or tune related in general, then you have a serious problem.

when the tune was done, the knock sensor wasn't tuned out because it's there for a reason. It shows knock. It showed knock on some runs last night before I swapped the plugs, and tonight on other runs it showed 1-2 counts, but nothing major, and the car didn't feel like it was doing anything but running strong. If it's a fueling issue, then that injector may be the problem. I don't know why it would have just started screwing up all of a sudden though. The car has been running great for months. I'll see about getting a new injector on that cylinder to see if that helps.

If it were something really serious, it seems like the car would be running poorly overall? Like I said, this all started really the other night. Up until then, WOT in any gear was no problem.

You don't have a wideband?

If those are silver flakes (and not a camera trick) on the new plug you got major detonation!

no need to buy a new injector just yet until you make sure. Just swap out that injector to another cylinder and see the issue moves over to there.

I'd rather just buy a new injector and see if that fixes the issue than move a possibly bad injector and run a bigger risk of blowing out another cylinder.

Yes most likely you would be smoking at idle and so forth if it was rings or something piston related severe interfering with compression.

Swap out a new injector in that cyl #1 and go from there. Be very cautious though. Definitely don't switch injectors around. While it may sound like a good idea, its not. It will just move the problem into the other cylinder if it is the injector.

Just throwing this out there, but check the line on your Fuel pressure regulator and make sure its not off also causing a severe lean condition due to fuel pressure not climbing 1:1 with boost:fuel.

I'm trying to find new injectors right now. I'm going to check the line on the regulator, but if that was the issue wouldn't I have problems in every cylinder and not just that one?

I was also told to check my oil filter for signs of a spun bearing. I'll be starting with that because it's almost time for an oil change anyway.

I don't have any smoke or anything coming out of the exhaust, and it's not burning or leaking any oil as far as I can tell. All the fluid levels are fine.

You'd know if you spun a bearing. It is very evident and the car would have a very loud knocking/ticking noise coming from it. It would sound like marbles in the engine each time you reved the car up.

Not necessarily. Cyl #1 runs leaner then the rest of the cyls because its the furthest away from the feedline to the rail.

Its most likely just that injector on cyl #1.

But usually when you close a spark plug gap like that its created by extreme cyl pressure, which is caused by detonation.

What kind of fuel?

Exactly how you narrow down the problem and diagnose. Then he will know for sure whether or not its an injector. He will just be out the price of a spark plug vs an injector. By the history of it, he will know when it wipes out a plug, and that's all seems to be doing. Sure you can throw parts at it, Im just saying why not at least try a little diagnosing first.

Because if that plug decides to break off, which it very well could, it will destroy his engine costing him a lot more $ then an injector.

Just remove the injector and have it flow tested. that's the easiest solution, instead of playing Russian roulette with your engine.