Sudden Misfires?
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TECH Apprentice
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From: Fredericksburg, VA
Sudden Misfires? Looking for thoughts on a problem that developed this afternoon.
Drove 30 miles to work this morning and the car ran fine. Got in it this afternoon to head home and got a flashing SES light at start up. It paused for a couple seconds and flashed again. After that, no more flashing. The car was sputtering all through the RPM range, which wasn't much for obvious reasons. Limped it home, sputtering the whole way. Even had a hard time maintaining speed going up hill. All the gauges looked good.
Got home and hooked up the scanner and there were no current codes and nothing in history (still no SES light). Checked out misfires and was getting a good handful on cylinders 2 and 6.
I have a few extra new plugs and am going to swap those two when the engine cools down a bit.
Any thoughts on why this would happen all of a sudden?
Thanks,
Marc
Drove 30 miles to work this morning and the car ran fine. Got in it this afternoon to head home and got a flashing SES light at start up. It paused for a couple seconds and flashed again. After that, no more flashing. The car was sputtering all through the RPM range, which wasn't much for obvious reasons. Limped it home, sputtering the whole way. Even had a hard time maintaining speed going up hill. All the gauges looked good.
Got home and hooked up the scanner and there were no current codes and nothing in history (still no SES light). Checked out misfires and was getting a good handful on cylinders 2 and 6.
I have a few extra new plugs and am going to swap those two when the engine cools down a bit.
Any thoughts on why this would happen all of a sudden?
Thanks,
Marc
Thread Starter
TECH Apprentice
iTrader: (7)
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 342
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From: Fredericksburg, VA
I hate it when I have a problem, search a handful of forums, find people that have had similar problems, and then never post what the actual cause of the problem was and what fixed it.
So... here's what happened with my problem.
Turns out I was getting 70 - 80 misfires on cylinder 6 and 60 - 70 on cylinder 2 (this was basically at idle with a little pedal to see if the misfires climbed... they did, but not much). I pulled the wires and plugs on those cylinders (of course it had to be the passenger side
) to have a look. Plugs were good (although I put new ones back in just to be on the safe side), but my plug wire on #2 had melted through to that webbing material right at the boot (the melted area was maybe 1/2" and only on one side of the wire) They're Taylor wires too BTW. And all my wires have heat sleeves on them! Oddly enough, there didn't seem to be any problems with the #6 wire. Which I thought was really weird since it was the one with the most misfires. Oh well...
Called a friend (DKITCHEN... thanks Dave) who happened to have a couple stock wires laying around and he dropped them by my house. I hooked them up and the misfires were gone and the car's running good again.
So, I guess I'll have to get me a new set of wires. Anyone have any suggestions? Obviously, the Taylors melt, so I'm thinking I might try another brand. MSD? Jacobs? Crane? Or should I stick with the Taylors?
Marc
So... here's what happened with my problem.
Turns out I was getting 70 - 80 misfires on cylinder 6 and 60 - 70 on cylinder 2 (this was basically at idle with a little pedal to see if the misfires climbed... they did, but not much). I pulled the wires and plugs on those cylinders (of course it had to be the passenger side
) to have a look. Plugs were good (although I put new ones back in just to be on the safe side), but my plug wire on #2 had melted through to that webbing material right at the boot (the melted area was maybe 1/2" and only on one side of the wire) They're Taylor wires too BTW. And all my wires have heat sleeves on them! Oddly enough, there didn't seem to be any problems with the #6 wire. Which I thought was really weird since it was the one with the most misfires. Oh well...Called a friend (DKITCHEN... thanks Dave) who happened to have a couple stock wires laying around and he dropped them by my house. I hooked them up and the misfires were gone and the car's running good again.
So, I guess I'll have to get me a new set of wires. Anyone have any suggestions? Obviously, the Taylors melt, so I'm thinking I might try another brand. MSD? Jacobs? Crane? Or should I stick with the Taylors?
Marc
I take it you didn't read at all? Anyway OP I would try a set of MSD's. You will be hard pressed to find a plug wire that wont melt when it touches a header. Try the MSD's they have a bendable boot to route the wire away from the primarys. There is a sponser on here that runs a deal with them his name is BlancoSS.
Thread Starter
TECH Apprentice
iTrader: (7)
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 342
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From: Fredericksburg, VA
On a related note: It's times like this that make you appreciate how well your car runs when it's running good. All day today, I kept liking the performance remembering how poorly the car was limping yesterday afternoon. It was almost like I was driving a new car. Damn I hate misfires!
