I like the way you think. I did the timing light check on each wire . The flashes looked pretty consistent as far as I could tell revving up to where the miss was occurring maybe 2500 or so. Hard to see irregularity much past that.

compression is 150, 150, 140, 140.

Sorry, forgot to mention that witch hunter cleaned my injectors.

Driving home tonight same thing, relatively smooth lugging around, the second that you transition from coasting to light throttle and RPMs are up around 2200 you can feel the miss, like hitting little potholes when you are on smooth pavent. Torque is getting better though. With heavy throttle It will move on forward pretty good, but the miss still gets progressively worse.

 

Stay simple Jody. I still think it's a cracked spark plug.

 

Check your fuel pressure. Follow the FSM to do the test correctly.

It's pretty easy with a good kit (I borrow one from autozone) . I connect the autozone kit provided banjo bolt to the cold start injector fuel line at the cold start injector and go from there. (but i have the 3.0)

 

Hey, I'm already into Autozone for 300 bucks for their AC vacuum pump and gauges.... what's another 150$ I will go by there on the way home and pick them up. My CSI sure is easy enough to get to, would be much easier than digging unter the intake... good call man! Will dig into FSM procedure after this post.

I replaced all 4 plugs (brand new NGK) with the old ones (NGK with 15k miles on them that were fine before the rebuild) and no change. It's not that expensive to buy 4 more new ones I guess, but what are the chances that both sets would act the same? This rebuild has told me that anything is possible I guess looks like I'll be heading by the auto parts store anyhow!

Hey not to open a can of worms here but should I try DENSO's if I am having "trouble" with NGK's?

 

Have you checked the gap of your spark plugs? literally if one is .01 off, you'll have a miss...

What spark plugs did you put in it? I recently dealt with this on my 3.0. I put in denso copper core plugs and gapped them at .37 ( .05 above stock ) and she didn't like them. I go get NGK V power plugs, gapped them at .37 with a nickel construction plug. No more miss.

As these cars get older they become more and more temperamental like a classic. gotta find what she likes.

 

Man how I hope it is this. To be honest, I when I installed the new plugs (NGK V-power, Nickel ) I checked the gap with a key-chain gauge. I'm pretty sure that got them within 0.010" but that is encouraging enough for me to do a double-check with a real feeler gauge.

Thanks.

 

triple checking the gap is always worth it since its extremely easy. I have no problem pulling my plugs on a 3.0, so I imagine its much easier on a 22re.

What did you gap them to?

 

0.031" per FSM. Stock igniter/coil

 

Those keychain gauges are annoying. use feeler gauges!

Also, you dont have to buy the pressure tester, they 'loan' it out.

And touche on the spark plug gap... I was surprised to read around how much it can affect the engine performance.

 

isn't .32 the factory gap?

 

Yeah, they are crap. If I find out that's what it is, I will definitely start a new thread telling everyone that the gap is that critical and to throw the edit (keychain feeler gauges) out. I couldn't find my good feeler gauges at the time is the only reason I used it.


Here's a shot out of the 88 FSM. I think that applies to 22r, 22re, and 22rte

 

Yeah, I hope to be able to return the AC stuff pretty soon. I am just waiting to put this engine problem to bed before I get the AC up and running. Don't want to have to pull the motor and risk contaminating the AC by snagging a line or by messing up a new condenser.

I took out my old (15k miles) plugs and they were all gapped properly and they were the expensive platinum NGK BPRE5GP. It gave me a glimmer of hope as I checked the gap of the new (200 miles) NGK V-power Nickel plugs that were sitting on my bench. All of them were more than factory spec, 2 of them right at 0.040! So I closed them down to 0.031" and installed them adding a touch of dielectric grease to the wire connection. I took it out for a spin down the road AND GUESS WHAT!!!!!!!!!





It still misses.

 

I stumbled across this thread and figured it couldn't hurt to check the resistance of the signal generator pick-up coil inside the distributor, and sure enough, the one I was running was out of spec.

It measured 201 ohms. Well fantastic! grabbed my other Distributor and it ohmed out at 158 GREAT! Measured the air gap and it was a nice and tight 0.010". I swapped it out for the second time because hey, that was a long time ago and I need to do something beside drink Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and stare at this motor. So I swapped it out, jumped T to S1, set the timing and you guessed it.....



It still misses.

 

Im fairly confident its not spark related. Im waiting on the fuel pressure results.

 

My 88 22RE misses while under no load starting at 2500 RPM. I've replaced everything under the hood of that truck. I've just learned to live with it, it still passes California smog no problem.

 

Man that sucks. Did you also do a fresh rebuild with a new head?

Where is the smiley for me blowing my head off? Palm to the face just isn't enough.

 

Sorry if I missed it, but have you checked that you are getting spark at each plug (pull each cable off and hold them next to the block while you crank the engine)? Also check your coil. If the field is weak in the coil, you could be getting weak spark with everything else working fine.

I mention this because we had the exact same issue with a different car, and it turned out to be weak spark, despite all evidence to the contrary. New coil/ignition circuit fixed it.

 

Brand new engine in my truck along with everything else under the hood. A buddy of mine has the same truck same problem. I only notice the miss if I'm going down a hill with light throttle, or sitting in neutral racing the engine to 2500 RPM. Again this miss only happens under no load conditions at or above 2500 RPM. While I was getting it smogged it sat there missing/sputtering the whole time and passed with flying colors. Since then I've stopped caring.

 

Fuel Test Results are in...


4 to 6 above shouldn't be a problem, right?

@ AxleIke - Good strong arc when each shorted to block. I have 2 coil/igniter assemblies and both are doing the same thing and both were fine before the rebuild, but thanks for the suggestion, won't hurt to check them.

@ xylicon - At least you passed emissions man, that's no small feat in CA from what I gather. Still pretty lenient on us in NC, but it's coming. What kinda mileage are you getting?

 

My fuel pressure is also 4 to 6 above. I don't like it... but I don't know how it will affect the performance.

When you throttle the engine during pressure test, how far down does it go?