I think my BMW may not be long for this world. Previously it would use oil at an acceptable rate, but it would foul spark plugs after about a year -- cylinder #3 would be the worst. But a change of plugs would fix it.
Last time I went home I got a bit of misfiring going up the Conejo grade so we changed plug #3 this weekend. When I went home it was misfiring very badly the whole way, however. The odd thing was that it ran fine when I was just going around town on the weekend - going over to the Snake and on the Kanan hill it was fine.
The misfiring on the trip back to school was so bad that I was limited to about 1/8 to 1/4 throttle (which gave me 60mph on the flats in 4th gear, and about 35 or 40 on the hills in 2nd or 3rd). It was load dependent. I tried doing an italian tuneup and just revving the snot out of it to try and clear it up but that does not work. I think it is ignition related because the missing cuts in and out very abruptly. Just a slight change in throttle position will make all the difference. So I think the ignition circuit is not sending enough power to the plugs to light the charge when the mixture is denser under load.
I changed the rest of the plugs on Tuesday. That seemed good at first but about 5 minutes into the drive the bad mising returned. I then changed the coil from a new silver Bosch (Russia I think) one to the original German, black one. But no change in symptoms. The plug wires all look alright - no arcing at night. I will try distributor cap and rotor maybe this weekend.
What concerns me is that I appear to have used 1/2 quart of oil in 160 miles (with the misfiring). In that case, the oil consumption has hit an inflection point and gone through the roof, meaning that it may have fouled the plugs in just the short amount of idling I did in those 5 minutes on campus and at the lights/stopsigns.
I have had a lot of fun with the car but I was hoping it would last until next June, when I would be in a better position to buy a car. I kinda have an urge for a 914 (ideally someone's completed project 914-6 conversion).
