2002 LS V8- need help on a couple of questions

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Dukester

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My wife's '02 LS (V8, 50K miles) has been having some small troubles lately and I wanted to ask for advice.

1. Yesterday, it started experiencing a rough idle and giving a Cyl 8 misfire code. Thanks to the tech articles I don't have any worries about being able to get to the coil, but I wanted to confirm the cylinder order. If I understand correctly, from front of car 1 thru 4 on passenger side and 5 thru 8 on driver's side. If that right? I don't have any way to check the coils, so I'll try to just change the offending coil first.

2. Should I expect to find a cylinder head oil leak? Several of the threads I was able to find mention oil leaks causing coil failures. If no oil leak, then replacing the plugs and coils can't be any worse than on my '99 Expedition I figure.

3. If the air cleaner isn't pretty new, then when you accelerate very hard (meaning I'm driving and not my wife :rolleyes: ), the A/C quits blowing cold air until you actually pull over and turn the car off for 10 or 20 seconds. Then when you turn the car back on it's fine again. This doesn't seem to occur with a newer air filter. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks,
Duke
 
1&2 - Your best bet would be to change the valve cover gaskets and replace all 8 coils while you're in there.

3 - I think this has to do with the hydraulic fan maybe? Someone else will surely be able to better inform us.
 
Ok, got up today and tackled the cylinder 8 misfire. Getting the driver's side coil cover off was a pretty tough job as that last screw on the back bottom is a pain in the ass to get out. But I finally got it off and pulled the #8 coil. The #8 boot was wet with a nice oily water sludge, so no surprise its bad.

Checked the gasket on the cover and it looks ok, but there was a bunch of debris built up on the head cover where the gasket sits. It was accumulated to the point that it could have definitely afffected the gasket seal. I cleaned that off and will see how it goes.

Pulled the other 3 coils and they all look good, clean and no oil or sludge on them. Went ahead and changed all 4 plugs on that side, reinstalled the 3 clean coils and replaced coil 8 with a new one. Reinstalled the coil cover and made sure everything was buttoned up. Started car and no more rough idle, so that's one problem down.

After that I went ahead and pulled the passenger side coils and replaced the plugs. Coils on that side all looked good too, so with a little dab of dieletric grease to give a little seal, they went back in and the cover went on.

Final tally:
Drive around to get plugs and new coil: 1 hr
Change plugs and one coil on driver's side: 2 1/2 hrs (damn f*cking low clearance screws)
Change plugs on passenger side: 1 hr
Total time: 4 1/2 hours

New plugs $40
New coil $45
Small metric toolsets $40 (never pass up good excuse to buy more tools)
Total cost $125

If I took it to a shop, I figure they would have tagged me for $300-400 for the same job minimum.

Now to just figure out what's going on with the AC.

Duke
 
Good to hear you've gotten the mis and idle worked out.
 
That AC thing is wierd. It is normal for the computer to cut off the compressor if you are flooring it, but it should return no normal operation when you release or reduce the gas.
 
By air filter do you mean for the intake or for the cabin air filtration system?
 
The engine intake filter. It may not really be related, but twice I was experiencing issues and after chaning the intake filter the AC issues went away.


Duke
 
Just came back from taking the LS out for a spin. After replacing the #8 coil and changing the plugs, now I've got pending codes for misfires on 2 and 4. I expect that in removing and reinstalling the coils, I've hastened their demise.

Just goes to show you that trying to take the cheap way out can bite your a$$. Should've replaced all 8 when I had it open the first time. Oh well, guess I know what I'm doing tomorrow afternoon now.

Duke
 
Replaced the remaining older coils with new ones. The car drives like a dream again. I took it out yesterday and kept a pretty heavy foot on the accelerator. Drove like a champ, no misses, shifting was crisp, and overall made me remember why I like this car so much to begin with.

While I had it opened up, I also had a badly fogging headlight lense. Used the angel eye intsall instructions from LS Koncepts to open up the headlight unit and clean it up. Then resealed it with RTV. Hopefully that will help a bit.

Last thing was to change the fuel filter. I've seen a couple of threads lately about fuel filters, so I took some pics while changing the filter. I'll put them in a separate thread.

Duke
 
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