Hey guys, so I was driving home yesterday in the dead of night and all of a sudden what I thought was lifter ticks suddenly got really loud and smoke started to come out of my 99 v6. Thankfully I was fairly close to home and was able to limp the rest of the way back. I did see that it had started to leak oil from the left side of the engine as I faced it.

This morning I went ahead and checked things out in the daylight and was able to confirm that oil is coming out where the spark plugs are and am showing codes of P0300, P0303 and P0306. I've never had to troubleshoot these types of issues before and I'm worried it means I'm going to have to replace the engine or car entirely but can anyone point me to what I need to do to start troubleshooting to confirm? I should have most tools needed, just have never had to troubleshoot this type of issue. I drive about 100 miles a day for work so it's worrying me this means I may need to just replace the car

For some background, oil is still showing as almost to the 2nd dot from when I changed it back in June. Sparkplugs and wires were also swapped out at 307k miles more so as preventative measure and to stop nagging from my maintenance app back in July but prior to that there were no issues and this issues just started last night.

If you have a spark plug socket, see if the leakers are loose.

^^ That's where I would start.

Thanks guys, I think I found the problem, what would cause something like this? Seems to have started up once I changed out the coil pack and is quiet again but still throwing out smoke. Going to drive it a bit later tonight to try to burn off whatever fuel is left inside the exhaust

That loud noise was the spark plug blowing out of the head and it damaged the coil pack. Did you check to see if the spark plug was threaded into the head and tight? The only time I've seen a coil pack nearly that bad was from the spark plug blowing out of the head. Also, there shouldn't be any engine oil in the spark plug tubes. That means your spark plug tube seal is wasted. If the spark plug is tight in the head, I don't know how that crazy damaged occurred. Could the oil collected in the tube ignite from the spark of the coil pack?

Sounds like you have two problems going on.

1. Your spark plug(s) were loose and one of them blew out of the head and destroyed the coil. That would also explain the "lifter" noise you were hearing prior to the spark plug ejection.

2. As Tim mentioned, your spark plug tube seals are toast. That would explain the oil inside the tubes and the smoke. If you were able to thread the spark plug back down tight, the smoke you are still seeing could just be whats left of the oil burning off.

Hopefully your spark plug stays in the head and the threads were not damaged. Time will tell.....

This has me thinking about the new plugs I put in recently while chasing a misfire. I did not use a torque wrench and installed them by 'feel'. Do people torque plugs to a spec, and if so, what might that be? TY

Thanks, when I did take out the old spark plug it appeared to be completely unthreaded, I felt no resistance when I turned the socket counter clockwise and it just pulled out. The new spark plug went in without issues. Can these back themselves out? I can't imaging I forgot to torque it down and it having ran since July without issues at 100 miles a day, right? I also use locktite blue on these when I put them in normally.

Regarding the oil in the well, I seem to remember having done a gasket job within the past 8ish years when I replaced some faulty injectors.

Use the NGK method:

403 Forbidden

You basically want to *just* finish crushing the gasket.

-Charlie

Yes, they can loosen, but I've never seen one completely unscrew. I have seen them blow out of the head with damaged threads.

I'll definitely have to keep an eye on it then, was able to clear out the smoke by driving for about 2 hrs or so. No noticeable issues other than the P0420 code came up but that's been on there for a while, at this point I believe it's the CAT for that code since I've replaced the O2's already.

Try using a product called Cataclean. You run it in your fuel and it's helped me in the past clear a P0420 code so I could get my rig smogged to get my registration tags.

Thanks for the suggestion but honestly it's not a big deal. I just reset the codes and drive it until just enough of the required amount of tests have been completed but just before this one pops up and it passes, then I'm good for another 2 years.