Been working on this thing for a few weekend and I'm about out of ideas. Driving home on the highway a cylinder just randomly starts completely dropped cyl #2 I pull over look thing over say screw it I'm not towing it and decide to drive home the 20 miles I am from home.

I get out to the car the next morning realizing I left the ignition on the battery being completely dead I lost all the engine code that it thew before I got to read any! But I'm thinking simple fix it's probably an injector I go to start the car to drive to my shop it wont starts but wont fire now it's only firing on ONE cylinder! Get it to my shop get into things I check the rotor and cap and see the rotor screw had came loose and stripped out I think ah easy I found the problem it was a cheap distributor I put in anyway got 20k out of it so I bought a better brand distributor and plugs thow it in still no fire just on cyl 3....
Swapped injectors from another car and new fuel filter still no fire... and to make it even more odd cyls 4,3,1 seem to have decent wet plugs cyl 2 plug is SOAKED even with injectors swapped. I do have power at all of them as well.

checked timing it's on point
have clear visible strong white spark on all 4 and gas
swapped the ecu from another car not 100%sure that ECU was good though.
Checked compression I'm all over 165 I did take the valve cover off to see if the cam was broke and the valves were very tight couldn't even get the tightest feeler gauge in not sure maybe this has something to do I feel bad I've never done a valve job on this motor.
Things I'm leaning towards is I melted the catalytic converter shut or something buggy with the wiring is happening.
Sucks I love my dx any diagnosis help appreciated

 

Have you done anything to modify the car? What engine is it?

If you've:
1. Spark
2. Compression
3. Fuel
4. Timing

The only thing I can think to check is air?

Are you grounds good? This one is a head scratcher.

 

I did redo the main ground to the trans. It's the d16y7 it really has me stumped too
I'm leaning towards electrical

 

Does it try to start or does it just turn over?

Have you done a leak down test?

If your spark is good and your firing order is correct and you know your injectors are firing, then the next step is compression/air.

if your compression is good (was this checked on a cold or hot engine? Did you put a cap full of oil into the cylinders to check if the compression rose?) I would suggest a leak down test next.

 

do you think a diffrence in leakdown results would lead to the no start issue just curious the diffrence its testing for. The car starts motor spins but only one cylinder is firing which is not enough to keep it running I can feel header pipe 3 is warming up when I try to start it but the other 3 are cold. Gonna take another crack at it this weekend once I get more ideas I will do the leakdown test.

 

Only one cylinder is firing, recheck your ignition system…

 

FIXED!!! So was back out today at it again first thing I did was pull all plugs and recertify spark and it was still good. Next tried a diffrent super dangerous approach to checking the injectors by removing them and the rail and trying them hooked up to the rail but away from the intake spraying into a box. Upon doing this test I notice the 3 of the injectors are DUMPING gas and one not at all so I swapped the position of the injector on the rail and it followed so I swapped the injector out with one out my parts car get the rail reinstalled and boom it fires right up............ wtf how did I go from one cyl working to all working with just changing 1 injector weeeeeeirrrddd. Car runs great though I'm flirting with the idea of buying some new ones at this point they have 230k on the stock ones.

 

Nice! Good diagnostics.

Rather than buying new injectors, you can do a down an dirty clean job with a can of carb cleaner, your battery, a hose, and some leads. Basically, get a hose that fits over the injector and heat shrink it to smaller and smaller hoses until you step it down to the carb cleaner straw. Then blip the injector with your battery while spraying carb cleaner.

 

NOT FIXED! put new injectors and fuel pump in the car it runs and idles but now has a misfire at idle and bogs when you chop the throttle revs fine if your rev slow with no load car wont drive under moderate throttle acceleration at load alo white smoke at idle and when revving. Getting ready to roll this thing off a cliff. Seems like its leaning towards a head gasket how the hell did the head gasket miraculously pop! This will be the second one I've done on this motor!
will post vid of it idling if anybody can give me a guess

 

Do you have fuel pressure? If the injectors were bad, there's a chance the fuel filter and regulator are gummed up, too.

I don't think that'll explain the white smoke, though. You said you had compression in all cylinders, right? Does the smoke smell like coolant or oil?