Let me preface this post that it is not my ‘97 that’s having problems, but someone else’s ‘97 CVLX. I’m trying to help them get this car sorted out. Vehicle in question has 151K miles.
Anyway, vehicle was sitting for about four years. Person who bought it drove it home, ran fine, but then the fuel pump went out (still has old gas). New fuel pump was installed and the car runs poorly. Catalytic converters start glowing red. Person working on the car took off the cats and gutted them to make sure they weren’t somehow the problem.
I was asked to come out and take a look and maybe give some opinion.
I went out and saw the car. The person working on it put in 8 new double platinum spark plugs and a new wire set. Old plugs were Bosch coppers and were considerably worn out being on the DIS system. Ignition coils were ruled out as we borrowed the ones off my car just to ensure they weren’t a possible suspect.
The car is hard to start and sometimes needs throttle to get it going. Compared to how a 4.6 should sound, it’s clear not every cylinder is firing when attempting to crank. When the car runs, it has heavy missing and the engine shakes badly. MAF has to be unplugged to get any throttle response, but it will run with it plugged in. CEL has only been set by MAF being unplugged for testing as verified with scan tool. White smoke out of exhaust pipe and smells heavily of old fuel.
Here’s where my freakiness comes from. It sounds like all the injectors are clicking away, but you can unplug cylinders 1, 3, 5, and 7 with no change to engine operation. If you unplug cylinders 2, 4, 6, or 8, the engine runs even worse and gets close to shutting off. Plugging those even numbered cylinders back in results in the engine remaining on, albeit poorly. The odd number cylinders result in no operational change.
It is somehow possible that these injectors may be clogged or stuck open dumping fuel while the others are still functional? It just seems odd that only odd number cylinders are affected but even ones aren’t. I also don’t want to throw a set of injectors at it and find out that’s not fixing anything either.
Anyway, vehicle was sitting for about four years. Person who bought it drove it home, ran fine, but then the fuel pump went out (still has old gas). New fuel pump was installed and the car runs poorly. Catalytic converters start glowing red. Person working on the car took off the cats and gutted them to make sure they weren’t somehow the problem.
I was asked to come out and take a look and maybe give some opinion. I went out and saw the car. The person working on it put in 8 new double platinum spark plugs and a new wire set. Old plugs were Bosch coppers and were considerably worn out being on the DIS system. Ignition coils were ruled out as we borrowed the ones off my car just to ensure they weren’t a possible suspect.
The car is hard to start and sometimes needs throttle to get it going. Compared to how a 4.6 should sound, it’s clear not every cylinder is firing when attempting to crank. When the car runs, it has heavy missing and the engine shakes badly. MAF has to be unplugged to get any throttle response, but it will run with it plugged in. CEL has only been set by MAF being unplugged for testing as verified with scan tool. White smoke out of exhaust pipe and smells heavily of old fuel.
Here’s where my freakiness comes from. It sounds like all the injectors are clicking away, but you can unplug cylinders 1, 3, 5, and 7 with no change to engine operation. If you unplug cylinders 2, 4, 6, or 8, the engine runs even worse and gets close to shutting off. Plugging those even numbered cylinders back in results in the engine remaining on, albeit poorly. The odd number cylinders result in no operational change.
It is somehow possible that these injectors may be clogged or stuck open dumping fuel while the others are still functional? It just seems odd that only odd number cylinders are affected but even ones aren’t. I also don’t want to throw a set of injectors at it and find out that’s not fixing anything either.
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