Missing under load, rought idle on startup

[rkneeshaw]

Had an issue with the truck running real rough for a few seconds on cold startups for the longest time. Then while driving the other day the truck starts missing, generally when the engine is under load. Just replaced the fuel pump and fuel filter with no improvement, so was moving on to spark as the possible culprit. Went so far as to try a new coil pack and new wires, but didnt really think the plugs would be bad because they were only 10k miles old. Turns out when I did finally get to changing the plugs on a whim, I checked the gap, and I was running my plugs at .040. Installed new plugs gapped at about .053 (spec calls for .052-.054) and she purrs like a kitten now. Both rough startup and missing issue has been resolved. Hope this helps someone else out there.

Here's how my old plugs looked, which I think look ok, probably only problem here is the gap being out of spec

 

[jhammel85]

Yeah they don't look too bad but guessing that the top right is #1, #3 looks a bit oil soaked. Might be worth looking into down the road. #6 looks brand new

Any ideas on how these plugs could of gotten so far out of spec?