It is incredibly frustrating when you are enjoying a drive in your Alfa Romeo and suddenly the check engine light illuminates, the engine starts to misfire, and you lose that crisp throttle response. Many car owners immediately suspect a faulty ignition coil or spark plug and head to the workshop. However, the scene encountered when the hood is opened and the coils are removed is often surprising: The spark plug wells are completely flooded with engine oil.
So, where does this oil come from, and how does it cripple your vehicle’s performance?
The Root Cause: A Weak Valve Cover Gasket Twin Spark and other high-performance Alfa Romeo engines inherently love to operate at high revs and high temperatures. The valve cover, located at the very top of the engine block, is sealed with a gasket that prevents engine oil from leaking out and filling the spark plug wells.
Over time, standard rubber gaskets cannot withstand the extreme heat of the engine and the chemical composition of synthetic oils. The gasket loses its flexibility, hardens, and eventually cracks, completely failing in its sealing duty. The leaking oil flows directly into the spark plug wells, causing the spark plugs and ignition coils to short circuit, leading to misfires and significant power loss.
The Permanent Solution: Reinforced Elastomer Structure Merely cleaning the spark plugs or installing a low-quality aftermarket gasket will only result in the problem reoccurring within a few months. On our production lines, we apply specialized engineering to permanently eliminate this chronic issue.
- High Heat Resistance: We manufacture our gaskets from specially formulated elastomer (advanced rubber and silicone) compounds that can easily withstand the extreme temperatures reached by Twin Spark engines.
- Synthetic Oil Compatibility: We prevent the gasket from hardening by using materials that show full resistance to the corrosive effects of modern fully synthetic engine oils.
- Perfect Mold Fit: Manufactured with millimeter precision to original (OEM) dimensions, our gaskets adhere flawlessly to the cover surface, completely stopping oil sweating under pressure.
If you want to protect your vehicle’s ignition system, make misfire issues a thing of the past, and never see oil in your spark plug wells again, you can safely purchase our reinforced Valve Cover Gasket options, manufactured directly in our own facilities, from our store.