I changed the spark plugs and wires on my '94 3.4 today. It's the first time I've done it, and it took me a while, but practice makes perfect, right? Anyway, the one that gave me the most grief was the one on the passenger side closest to the rear of the vehicle. I ended up breaking the old spark plug in half, and finally got the rest of it out. I cleaned it up as best as I could. I could tell that there was still some gunk in there, but I was just fed up with it. I put the new spark plug in, made sure everything was tightened down one last time, and started it up. It ran beautifully! This is my first Camaro, and I've only had it for a few weeks, but it always seemed to me that it was a little lacking in power. I thought that maybe this was just because it had an older engine, but I thought I'd take a stab at changing out the spark plugs. The old plugs were pretty worn, and they all had a 0.05" gap. I made sure that the new ones I put in all had the correct 0.045" gap. Anyway, after I drove around a bit and enjoyed the new power that it had thanks to the new plugs, I got it home and noticed some smoke coming from the hood. I opened it up, and it appears to be coming from the area of that one spark plug that was giving me so much grief. I made a couple more trips with it, and it drives great, but there's still some smoke coming from that same place. It does, however, seem to be smoking less now than that first time I drove it... I'm just wondering, could it just be the oily gunk burning off that I saw when I had the plug out? Is this something I should worry about, or can I just let the gunk burn off and not worry about it? It took me so long to get the old plug off and put the new one on in that location, so I'd hate to have to do it again if I don't have to.

 

what kinda gunk?like oil/grease?or like a thread sealer?if just oil it should burn off.if abrasive...might want to try to retighten the plug at some point.but dont over do it

 

The smoke is coming from the cigar in your avatar pic. ;-)

The first step in removing plugs is to try to clear away any debris from that area, obviously, you do not want any debris falling into the plug holes, and that's probably what happened... I assume you cleaned the threads and tightened the plugs to spec.

 

You may be on to something there!

Like I said, I cleaned it as best as I could given the inaccessibility of that particular plug hole. Still, I figured it's better to be safe than sorry, so I went ahead and removed that plug this morning. The first thing I noticed was how easily it came out! Obviously, whoever changed the spark plugs the last time, didn't put anti-seize compound on the spark plug threads like I did. The second thing I looked for was any damage to the spark plug, and there was none. I shined a light at the hole, and there was the same greasy gunk that I had tried to clean before (to answer your question, dc14u2no, it's oil/grease, not thread sealer). I got in there with a toothbrush and cleaned it even better (I found that tip afterward on another forum). Then I put the plug back in, tightened it, and reconnected the wire. I haven't driven it yet, but I'm confident now that no damage was done, which was what I was mostly worried about yesterday.

 

Just a quick update... The toothbrush cleaning did the trick. No more smoke! Go figure...