Today I noticed that there is a decent amount of oil surrounding the spark plugs, where is this coming from and what does it mean for the motor? -94 Accord LX 2.2

 

i have the same car, same motor, and had the same problem. there is a gasket that sits between the valve cover and the head. because of the spark plug tubes there have to be ring gaskets there too to seal it off. these are bad and the gasket simply needs replaced. the motor should be fine. how many miles? if you got about 30 minutes, the gasket, gasket sealer, and a socket wrench you can do it yourself. check out the 1994-1997 accord manuals in the sticky in the DIY section. great stuff!

 

Thats a pretty common problem, simple fix as clutch pointed out, when you have the valve cover off you my as well replace the valve cover gasket(not recommended to put the old one back on). You can get a whole gasket set(valve cover gasket, spark plug tube gaskets, and usually valve cover bolt grommets). These can be had for cheap money at auto parts stores. You will also want to get some RTV gasket sealer to put in the corners of the gaskets to help hold them in place, esp around the cam.

 

replace all those gaskets. i had the same problem on my 96 accord

 

Like Cameron (L2R) said, the complete gasket set. Fel-Pro is a good replacement and the whole set is under $30, maybe even under $20. RTV in the corners is a must.

 

After you do all that stuff, watch the sparkplug tubes for continued leakage.

Further down in the sparkplug tubes, theres another seal which might be your leak. The VC gasket set will probably come with 4 O-rings which go there. These require removing the rocker assemblies & the camshaft bearing caps. Thats a much bigger job, so cross your fingers & hope your upper seals are causing the leak.

 

The valve cover gasket set only comes with upper seals since they sit in the valve cover itself. The lower seals sit in the head and are a pain to get to.