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Hi all

Not sure what it is but lately my NA seems strange, on the occasion, at cruise rev the engine/exhaust puts out this throtty mumble kinda sound, when it does the car hesitate with respect to the sound. Does it at random and last a couple of seconds then go away.

I thought it may be ignition dodginess so I undo the spark plugs and found oil surrounding the threads of the plug. I thought the only way oil can get there is worn cam cover rubber gasket OR blown piston rings or something...can't be blowned rings cause the car still drives very normal, so I replaced the cam-cover gasket, spark plugs and leads...problem went away for about a week and just yesterday started again. Took out the plugs again and found oil on the thread as before...WFT?...just replaced the gasket, something else I'm missing? Blown piston rings?

Short nose cank on it way out?, can't be..it's straight as an arrow, no wobble. What do you recon? where should I look next?

Cheers
Minh

Maybe the engine performance problem is nothing to do with an oil leak. My car peformed the same way when I used Shell V-Power - gutless, missing, pinging, \"throtty mumble kinda sound\" and it started growing little black iron-like nodules on the plugs which eventually killed them.

New plugs and switching to BP and Caltex 98 got it back to normal after 2 or 3 tankfuls. One panic buy of V-Power repeated the problem.

My car peformed the same way when I used Shell V-Power - gutless, missing, pinging, \"throtty mumble kinda sound\" and it started growing little black iron-like nodules on the plugs which eventually killed them.

Was that when it was first released? A month or so after it came out it suddenly disappeared for a few weeks. I always wondered if Shell worked out something was wrong with it and did a quick fixup without telling anyone.

Having said that though, I've never had any problems using V-Power in my car or bike but both seem to go a bit harder on Ulitimate.

V-Power problems were late last year/early this year. Haven't been game to go near it again since. Just switched from BP 98 to Caltex 98 and seemed to get a bit more snap in the motor.

Rocker cover gasket usually fixes this, may not be sealing correctly? Perhaps you could try a swapping for another rocker cover?