twofortyessex

I had this problem when I first bought my car, thought it was from carbon fouling or a stuck injector. almost a year later, the problem rears its ugly head again. Number 3 cylinder goes dead and the supreme loss of power totally kills the pass I was about to make. not to mention the shaking from the dead cylinder was making my teeth chatter.

and then the exhaust started to fill up with fuel that wasnt getting burned and when I was pulling over it backfired... poommfff huge fireball out the back. messed with it for about 20 minutes, pulled the third plug wire off, heard a clicking noise and then plugged it back in, and the cylinder fired up and it ran fine.

any ideas on what could be causing this? I was running 89 octane gas (10% ethanol mix) which I know sucks in my car, but I was on a budget. everything else seems fine, I'm going to check my plugs this weekend and see how they are.

fugitive240

Could be any number of things, bad injector, wire, compression. I'd start with checking the plugs like you are, this will probably only confirm that you have a dead hole though, not necessarily why. Ohm out the injectors and the wires, even a wire that looks good on the outside could be broken on the inside. Also check your dist. cap, particularly the terminal for the 3rd cyl. i am local, could possibly give you a hand if needed. Be sure to sae your old plugs and number them accordingly incase you need to show them to someone.

war

I have had a problem with my number 4 cylinder not firiing. It was due to frayed injector harness. The wires on the injector harness were exposed and touched each other which caused my ecu to short out. Fixed the injector harness and replaced my ecu for 20 bucks on ebay and POW the baby kicked right in. I have been recently been having a problem with my car puttering real bad and I just fixed it last night. Turned out it was my spark plug wire was frayed and was causing the cylinder to miss but only for a sec or 2 at a time. Having problems with a cylinder not firing= little or no spark, or not getting gas into the cylinder(which was what my problem was with the injector harness). I would definitely start with the spark plug wires and spark plugs. Check your injector harness. You can find out if your getting gas into your cylinder by removing the spark plug to see if it dry or has gas on it. Anyone correct me if im wrong but thats what an ex-mechanic told me one time. If all else fails you can always take it to a mechanic. I only paid 20 bucks to have him tell me what was wrong with it, then fixed it myself.

twofortyessex

I know that all the wiring is intact and in good shape. I've checked it all over. I'm starting to believe that its either an old and worn out distributor and the plugs. I havent gotten a chance to check the plugs yet.

everything on the engine is stock, so the distributor being worn is pretty normal. thanks for the help.

and I am getting gas, the injectors are fine. I was blowing big fireballs when it backfired from the fuel that was being injected into the #3 cylinder and NOT burning. so I know the fuel system is ok. not to mention, the car reeked of unburned gas the whole time.

ArticDragon

89 octane shouldn't be bad for your car. It's a 4 cyclinder car. I doubt it needs anything higher than 89 to work fine.

twofortyessex

its not that its 89 octane... its 89 with 10% ethanol. only happens when I run that. I've run 91 in this car a few times and it runs like crazy, but I usually keep it on 87 or 89 without the ethanol.

dont know if that would make the cylinder cut out, but from what I've noticed the ethanol makes it run like shiz. I'm replacing the distributor and plug wires soon anyway, and rebuilding the top end. so hopefully I can find the little problem then.

revolutionz_s13

I just had the same problem with my car. The number 3 cylinder would cut out, then after a while, it would pick it back up. After checking the plugs, distributor, and valve train, I replaced the injector. Sure enough, it was just the injector decided it did not want to work anymore. The tricky part about it was that the injector was still pulsing when the car was running, so it sounds like it was working. Apparently, the KA motor is known for dropping that third cylinder I found out after talking to a few more people.