engine misfire help

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blklscmd

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i have come to find out i have a misfire but just a little bit is there a scan tool or something that can tell you which cylinder isnt firing 100% i can hear it through the intake the little pu pu sounds or is there a way i can do it myself with basic tools
 
Is your check engine light on? If so, yes - a scan tool will read it. Or bring it to your local AutoZone and they'll read it for you.

I'm fighting with a Thunderbird (4.6L) right now, NO codes, backfiring though the intake, NO power, etc. No codes though, so I'm screwed.
 
i was looking at buying the top of the line actron scanner it says it has a cylinder counter i dont know what that means
 
depends on the year model of the car, if the missfires will be logged by the PCM.

93-95's dont
96-98's do

When asking these types of questions, it's always helpful of you leave the year model of the car, so people can properly assist you.

If youy have a 93-95 and hear "put put put" thru the intake, you more than likely have the much documented, well known issue of a failed valve spring.
which is a "bummer".
 
Kevin said:
Is your check engine light on? If so, yes - a scan tool will read it. Or bring it to your local AutoZone and they'll read it for you.

I'm fighting with a Thunderbird (4.6L) right now, NO codes, backfiring though the intake, NO power, etc. No codes though, so I'm screwed.
Click to expand...

ewww....now THAT DOES sound like a valve spring or the cam timing has jumped.
Either way THAT doesnt sound good.
 
What's odd, is that it used to run good - when I first bought it and replaced the plugs.

Thinking it's coil-packs, but even then - no idea. It will rev up to about 4k rpm (that's it). Have lots of fuel pressure (25psi idle, 40psi under load).

Paid $800 for it, at worse it becomes a parts car. Am going to take it to my local Furd dealer to see what's wrong with it before I part it out.

BTW - yeah, I neglected to ask the year - was presuming it was a OBD2 car, due to the asking about using a scan tool on it.
 
Kevin said:
What's odd, is that it used to run good - when I first bought it and replaced the plugs..
Click to expand...

On my 98, the same thing happend.
Car ran good, needed plugs.
I replaced the plugs and had all sorts of missfire codes on both banks.
Replaced the COP boots and all was well.

Might not be the actual coil itself, probably just the 8 dollar coil boot.
I'd replace them ALL in a pre-emptive strike.

It's only 32.00 to replace them all
 
mines is a 2nd gen but xlr did your boots even have cracks in them or did you just replace them because somethings definately wrong with my car has power did a 0-60 in 7.3 but it wasnt steady i was pumping the pedal a guy has a snap on mt2500 for sale kinda cheap im thinking about purchasing im getting like 10.5 miles per gallon everythings up to date oil,fuel filter,o2's,plugs,air filter,maf cleaned,motor was installed in febuary with 67k the damn tires used to spin out of control on the old engine with a bad headgasket kinda hard to do that now
 
blklscmd said:
mines is a 2nd gen but xlr did your boots even have cracks in them or did you just replace them because somethings definately wrong with my car has power did a 0-60 in 7.3 but it wasnt steady i was pumping the pedal a guy has a snap on mt2500 for sale kinda cheap im thinking about purchasing im getting like 10.5 miles per gallon everythings up to date oil,fuel filter,o2's,plugs,air filter,maf cleaned,motor was installed in febuary with 67k the damn tires used to spin out of control on the old engine with a bad headgasket kinda hard to do that now
Click to expand...

no the boots did not have visible cracks..

ALSO.. if the price is right on that "red brick" MT2500 GET IT!
how much does he want for it?

FWIW: you can probably pick up an Xcal 2 off ebay for 100-200 dollars and it does MORE than the mt2500 does.
it'll datalog your PCM faster than the MT2500 and it'll playback on your laptop or your desktop very easily.

AND.. it'll push a performance tune to your PCM, something the red brick simply cant do.

when I was tuning my eec4 car, I used the redbrick.. it worked well for the application, but didn't have a quick enough sample rate to be "100%" trustable.
 
It's always a good idea to replace the coil boots when you change plugs. The boots don't have to be cracked all the way through in order to cause misfires.

Oh. and some punctuation in your long drawn sentences might make things easy for people to read. You know, a period here, a comma there...
 
He wants 500 obo. I always thought the xcal was a chip or something. I just want a scanner or something i can diagnose any problems the car is having.Also where can i get the boots from.
 
blklscmd said:
He wants 500 obo. I always thought the xcal was a chip or something. I just want a scanner or something i can diagnose any problems the car is having.Also where can i get the boots from.
Click to expand...

The xcal 2 is a tuner/programmer that will read and clear DTC trouble codes and will "Datalog" the PCM while the car is running.

If you'd rather pay 5 times the amount of a used Xcal to get a 500.00 SCANNER ONLY, then feel free..
 
a good price on an MT2500 would be 250.00, not 500.00

They are OLD and near obsolete in todays automechanical environment.
 
blklscmd said:
.Also where can i get the boots from.
Click to expand...

^ this would have needed one of them squiggly things called "question marks".
They look like this "?"

you can get them at the ford dealer, for more money.
I got them at Standard Auto Parts for 4.99 and at Advance Auto for 4.99 as well.

They are called "coil on plug boots".
 
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