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Jun Park noticed it at a red light.
A small tremor passed through the Tiburon’s steering wheel.
Then another.
The engine settled back into its normal rhythm before Jun could decide whether anything had actually happened.
He watched the tachometer.
Steady.
Almost.
The needle dipped slightly.
Then recovered.
Jun leaned forward.
“Did you just do something?”
The Tiburon idled innocently.
The light turned green.
Jun drove on.
He told himself it was nothing.
An old car did not idle with laboratory precision.
Engines vibrated.
Air conditioners cycled.
Roads tilted.
Fuel quality changed.
There were dozens of harmless explanations.
Jun repeated several of them as he drove home.
Then the car stumbled again.
This time, he felt it through the seat.
A brief interruption.
Like the engine had forgotten one beat of a familiar song.
The check-engine light remained off.
That somehow made it worse.
A warning light would have given him something definite.
Instead, Jun had only a feeling.
And feelings were difficult to scan with a diagnostic tool.
He parked beneath his apartment and left the engine running.
The Tiburon idled normally for nearly a minute.
Jun watched it from the driver’s seat.
Nothing.
He placed one hand on the shifter.
Still nothing.
“You’re making me look paranoid.”
The engine coughed.
Jun froze.
“There.”
Then it returned to normal.
Jun shut it off and opened the hood.
The engine bay looked exactly as it had that morning.
No smoke.
No loose intake pipe.
No leaking coolant.
No dramatic trail of sparks.
Just an engine sitting quietly beneath the parking-garage lights.
He checked the intake clamps.
Tight.
He checked the electrical connectors he could reach.
Connected.
He checked the oil.
Normal.
Then he looked again at the faint residue he had noticed after the dyno session.
It sat near the ignition components, dark and slightly oily.
Jun took a photograph and sent it to Daniel.
Does this look bad?
Daniel replied a minute later.
It looks like a photograph taken in the dark.
Jun turned on his flashlight and sent another.
Daniel responded:
Better. Don’t drive it hard. Bring it tomorrow.
Jun stared at the message.
The phrase don’t drive it hard rarely led to anything enjoyable.
The next morning, the Tiburon started normally.
Jun almost felt disappointed.
A clear failure would have been easier than an intermittent one.
He drove toward Daniel’s garage slowly, listening to every sound.
For the first fifteen minutes, the car behaved perfectly.
Then Jun accelerated onto the expressway.
The engine climbed through the rev range.
The cold air intake began to roar.
For one second, everything felt normal.
Then the car jerked.
Power vanished.
Returned.
Vanished again.
The check-engine light flashed.
Jun immediately lifted his foot.
His stomach dropped.
The light stopped flashing but remained illuminated.
Jun moved into the right lane.
The Tiburon still ran, but the idle had become uneven.
The exhaust note sounded broken.
One pulse was missing.
Then another.
Cars passed on his left while Jun held the steering wheel tightly.
Every mechanical disaster he had ever read about appeared in his mind at once.
Blown engine.
Broken valve.
Failed piston.
Damaged timing belt.
Destroyed catalytic converter.
The internet was very efficient at teaching people the worst possible outcome.
Jun exited the expressway and pulled into a quiet parking lot.
He shut off the engine.
Silence.
He called Daniel.
“The light flashed.”
“Is it still flashing?”
“No. It’s solid now.”
“Did the car lose power?”
“Yes.”
“Any smoke?”
“No.”
“Any knocking?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You would know.”
“That is not comforting.”
Daniel paused.
“Start it once. Don’t rev it.”
Jun turned the key.
The engine started, but the uneven rhythm returned immediately.
Daniel listened through the phone.
“Sounds like a misfire.”
Jun looked toward the hood.
“How bad?”
“Misfire describes what it’s doing. It doesn’t tell us why.”
“Can I drive it?”
“How far are you?”
“About ten minutes away.”
“Drive gently. If the light starts flashing again, shut it down.”
Those ten minutes felt longer than the entire mountain cruise.
Jun kept the engine speed low.
Every vibration felt enormous.
Every sound seemed expensive.
When Daniel’s garage finally appeared, Jun exhaled so hard that his shoulders dropped.
Daniel was already waiting outside.
Jun parked and stepped out.
“I think I broke it.”
Daniel opened the hood.
“You always think you broke it.”
“This time the car agrees.”
Daniel connected a scan tool beneath the dashboard.
A code appeared.
Cylinder Three Misfire Detected.
Jun stared at the screen.
“So cylinder three is dead?”
“Not necessarily.”
“But it says—”
“It says the computer detected an uneven contribution from that cylinder.”
Daniel scrolled through the data.
“It could be ignition. Fuel. Compression. Wiring. A vacuum leak affecting that runner. Several things.”
Jun sighed.
“Couldn’t it just say which part to buy?”
“That misunderstanding has funded a lot of parts stores.”
Jun immediately opened a shopping page on his phone.
Daniel looked over.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking at upgraded ignition coils.”
“We haven’t tested the ones you have.”
“They might be bad.”
“They might not.”
“New ones would eliminate the possibility.”
“So would replacing the entire engine.”
Jun lowered the phone.
Daniel pointed toward the tool bench.
“We diagnose first.”
They began with the simplest inspection.
Daniel removed the ignition components carefully while Jun labelled everything.
One lead showed faint wear near the boot.
Another connector looked dirty but intact.
When they reached cylinder three, the problem became more visible.
A small amount of oil had collected around the spark-plug well.
Jun stared at it.
“That shouldn’t be there.”
“No.”
“Is the engine destroyed?”
Daniel looked at him.
“No.”
“You answered too quickly.”
“Because oil near a plug well is usually a sealing problem above the combustion chamber, not proof that the engine has exploded.”
Jun nodded slowly.
“So the oil could cause the misfire?”
“It could damage the boot, interfere with the spark, or contribute to arcing. But we still test.”
They removed the spark plug.
Its tip was darker than the others.
The electrode showed wear.
Jun held it beneath the shop light.
“These don’t look new.”
“When were they changed?”
Jun thought about it.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel waited.
“Before I bought the car, maybe.”
“That is not a maintenance interval.”
The remaining plugs came out.
None were in ideal condition.
Cylinder three was the worst.
Daniel arranged them in order on a clean cloth.
Jun looked from one to another.
The differences were subtle.
He realized how easily he would have replaced one part, cleared the code, and declared victory without understanding anything.
Daniel inspected the ignition lead from cylinder three more closely.
He bent it gently.
A tiny crack opened in the insulation.
Jun leaned forward.
“That’s it?”
“It is definitely something.”
Daniel sprayed a light mist near the lead and tested it in a controlled darkened area.
A faint blue spark escaped through the cracked insulation.
Jun’s eyes widened.
“It’s leaking electricity.”
“Essentially.”
“That tiny crack caused all of this?”
“Under the right conditions, yes. High load demands a stronger spark. Weak insulation can fail when the engine is working hardest.”
Jun thought back to the expressway.
The intake roaring.
The sudden loss of power.
The flashing warning light.
A tiny crack had turned the entire car into a crisis.
Relief arrived first.
Then embarrassment.
“I almost ordered expensive coils.”
Daniel smiled.
“You would not be the first.”
“I thought upgrading everything would be safer.”
“Upgrades don’t replace diagnosis.”
They replaced the worn plugs and the damaged ignition lead with quality parts.
Daniel cleaned the oil from the plug well and showed Jun the likely source near the upper-engine seal.
“It isn’t pouring out,” Daniel said. “But this needs attention.”
“So we’re not done.”
“Cars are rarely done.”
Jun wanted to restart the engine immediately.
Daniel stopped him.
“Before that, check your work.”
They inspected every connection.
Every routed lead.
Every plug.
Every fastener.
Jun found one connector he had not fully seated.
He pressed it until it clicked.
Daniel nodded.
“That click just saved us twenty minutes of confusion.”
Jun sat in the driver’s seat.
His hand rested on the key.
He suddenly felt nervous.
“What if it still misfires?”
“Then we keep diagnosing.”
“What if it’s compression?”
“Then we measure it.”
“What if the compression is bad?”
Daniel folded his arms.
“Turn the key, Jun.”
The engine started.
For the first few seconds, Jun watched the tachometer without breathing.
The idle settled.
Smooth.
No missing beat.
No tremor through the wheel.
He waited.
Thirty seconds.
One minute.
Still smooth.
Jun smiled cautiously.
Daniel stood beside the open hood, listening.
“Take it around the block.”
Jun drove gently at first.
The Tiburon felt normal.
But normal was no longer something he took for granted.
He noticed the steady idle.
The clean response.
The uninterrupted pull through the lower rev range.
When he reached an open stretch of road, Daniel nodded.
“Give it some load.”
Jun accelerated.
The engine climbed.
The intake grew louder.
He waited for the violent hesitation.
It never came.
The Tiburon pulled cleanly through the rev range.
Jun shifted.
Accelerated again.
Still clean.
The car had its rhythm back.
Jun laughed.
A short, involuntary burst of relief.
Daniel glanced over.
“You seem happy for someone who gained zero horsepower.”
“It feels like I gained all of it back.”
“That counts.”
Back at the garage, they scanned the car again.
No active misfire.
The old code remained stored, but the live data looked normal.
Daniel did not let Jun celebrate too quickly.
“We fixed an obvious ignition fault. That does not mean we ignore the oil.”
Jun looked toward the engine.
“The seal.”
“Yes.”
“And the compression test.”
“Yes.”
“Minho is never going to let that go, is he?”
“Neither am I.”
At the next meet, Jun arrived later than usual.
The Tiburon rolled into the lot quietly.
No flashing lights.
No hesitation.
Just the familiar silver coupe, sitting low on its new wheels.
One of the younger drivers approached.
“I heard you had engine trouble.”
Jun stepped out.
“Misfire.”
“That sounds serious.”
“It can be.”
“What did you replace?”
“Plugs and a damaged ignition lead.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s what failed.”
The younger driver looked almost disappointed.
“No upgraded coils?”
“No.”
“No performance plugs?”
Jun shook his head.
“Just the correct parts.”
Daniel watched from nearby.
Jun noticed him smiling.
A few months earlier, Jun had wanted every repair to become a modification.
Now he understood that reliability was part of the build.
Maybe the most important part.
A car that looked perfect but could not make it home was not finished.
It was decoration.
Later that night, Jun leaned against the Tiburon while conversations moved around him.
Someone argued about turbo sizes.
Someone compared exhaust systems.
Someone claimed a particular spark plug added horsepower.
Jun no longer felt pressure to join every debate.
He knew what his car had taught him.
A problem did not become clearer because someone spoke confidently about it.
A fault code was a clue, not a shopping list.
And sometimes the part standing between a working car and a broken one was smaller than a finger.
Before leaving, Jun opened the hood one more time.
He inspected the repaired ignition components.
Dry.
Secure.
Quiet.
Then he looked toward the seal Daniel had mentioned.
The residue had been cleaned, but Jun knew it could return.
The misfire had been solved.
The deeper question remained.
Was the engine truly healthy enough for the power Jun wanted?
He closed the hood.
The answer would not come from a comment section.
It would come from numbers.
Real ones.
Cylinder by cylinder.
Jun climbed into the Tiburon and started the engine.
The idle settled into a steady rhythm.
This time, he listened without fear.
Then he drove into the night.
End of Chapter 7
Next: Chapter 8 – The Compression Test
