2002 Accord valve adjustment and spark plug wire discolorati

Those spark plugs look pretty normal. As for the rust, well that could be down to moisture building up around the lower of the ignition wire. Have you tried dielectric grease?

Do you have the ability to post a video of this ‘slapping’ noise? Piston slap sounds like a hollow sound that is most noticeable on acceleration.

Have you tired to isolate the engine noise by disabling 1 cylinder at a time to see if your engine noise disappears? Thatis one way of checking for a rod knock and so forth.

I sometimes see that brown color when moisture gets into the spark plug well either due to someone washing the engine or when the wire is not installed all the way.

As for the plugs the marks on the porcelin are normal and from someting called the ‘corona’ so that is not a concern however it does look like your buring some oil on a couple of the cylinders so keep an eye on your oil level especially after a long highay drive.

The noise your hearing could be a loose timing belt so you might want to check the tension there.

Lastly with the valve adjustment I often find that the intakes are loose and the exhaust are tight. If you felt the valves were all tight you might want to go back and recheck them and your work just to be sure because if they are not adjusted correctly it could mean damage to the valves. It could be nothing as they may have been misadjusted in the past.

You can do a cylinder balance test if you have a scan tool.

If not, you can disable the ignition or fuel injector on one cylinder at a time checking for a change in noise. It may be easier just to disconnect a fuel injector harness connector on one cylinder and see if you hear a notable change, if not, reconnect and go to the next cylinder. If the fuel injectors are hard to get to, you could disconnect an ignition wire, ground it, then again check for a change in noise while at idle. If you are unsure on how to do that, just Google it. And don’t get zapped….

Do you have a mechanics stethoscope that you could use to help locate this particular noise? Also, make sure your ruling out any other noises coming from the engine bay from accessories and so forth.

I really doubt its a rod knock or anything that major. Its possibly just excessive lifter noise.

If you know the valves are good then I would check the timing belt tension as I suggested in the last comment. I do believe I did mention to put a little sealant on the corners of the valve cover gasket at the arches in my video as that is actually Honda service procedure, you can reuse the gasket as long as it’s still pliable and not hard and brittle. I don’t recommend anti-sieze on the plug threads, just a drop of oil is much better in my opinion but it’s not going to hurt anything. Here is a link to my ‘power balance’ video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAOmUjAjNjE

If you do it for a prolonged period of time it might set a CEL but if it does you can just clear it and ignore it. I would be checking the belt tension first however.

Dreamer:

Good question about spakplug antiseize.

The first thing I do when buying a vehicle, new or old, is apply a bit of antiseize on the sparkplug base threads. Lawnmowers too, come to think of it.

However, these antisieze coumpounds have metallic copper, lead, maybe zinc, which will poison your catalytic converter……so apply very little. I own a fair number of engines, and two tubes of antisieze are still about half full.