so I was coming from a friends house today, I was going rather fast on the highway, and all of a sudden I felt my car kind of studder, EGTs went really low, and it started to sound like a Harley (one of the cylinders was missing) but once I got over 4-5k rpm it would try to start firing again (it would pull but cut out 2 or 3 times to redline) This isn't the first time this has happened though, it has had this problem for about a month now, but it used to last only a few seconds, and it got progressively worse until now it hardly works at all.

I checked its compression and its +-3 in every cyl, but the #3 spark plugs electrode is black, while all the others are tan. Anybody have an idea on what it could be? What should I check for?

TIA

 

It sound's like the rotor is shot in your distributor or the cap either way I think it is a combo when you go and buy it. Or that is the maintance suggestion to change the cap and rotor at the same time. But that sounds like the problem.

 

hmm, I hope your wrong, lol

I got new gas and put some injector cleaner in there, im just gonna let it idle for a while...it sounds a little cleaner so hopefully that will fix it

 

nope that wasn't it, lol

could it be ignition timing?

 

any CEL ? if its 71,72,73,74 your misfiring. I would recommend a new Dist car and rotor its only like $20bucks. Are your wires in good conditions ? also when was the last time you changed your spark plugs?

 

no CEL. I changed the spark plugs and checked for spark. So I know thats not a problem

 

then do the cap and rotor

 

do a leak down. COuld be a faulty injector or wiring somewhere also. COuld be a burnt valve, could be a few things

 

try the wires, becuase it sounds like the same problem i had in my camry. as soon as i changed the wires, the problem stopped.

 

i think its something in the distributor, i. e. cap, rotor, coil or ignitor

 

The problem is your spark plug wires.

I had this exact same problem. Only present when warm and lower in the powerband (i.e. just coming out of a shift).

Replace the plug wires and it will be fixed.

 

how much are plug wires? should I get OEM?

 

get some oem or ngk wires, wires are around 60-70 bucks

 

yes, only oem or NGK

 

I put my dads spark plug wires on mine, and in the process I had to buy new ones anyways, and it didn't fix the problem (do I have bad luck or what?)

im going to mess with the ignition timing a little, and if that doesn't fix it im going to try swapping the stock injectors in there...ill get this thing running sooner or later

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by TurboDaveR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> if that doesn't fix it im going to try swapping the stock injectors in there... </TD></TR></TABLE>
Try swapping the injector from the affected cylinder with another cylinder to see if the problem moves. That would indicate a bad injector.

 

It's definitely ignition related. Injectors would not cause an issue like the one you're seeing. Injectors are just solenoids with their duty cycle controlled by PWM (i.e. flip connection to ground open or closed for a given period time and frequency). They either flow and max out their flow or they don't. You'd never see a situation where it's crappy at lower rpm but better at higher rpm.

Cap.
Rotor.
Wires.
Plugs.
Knock sensor connection (if you have one).
Compression test.

 

I took the car to redline today and that cyl wouldn't fire the whole way, so what ever the problem is its getting worse. I think I will swap the injector, couldn't hurt.

 

hmm, I took the injectors out, inspected them, put them back in and now it works just fine. Your guess is as good as mine, hopefull it will stay fixed and I wont be forced to buy new injectors

 

for the search buffs...

turns out it wasn't the injector, one of the injector wires that was going into my resistor box broke off in the head shrink.