I wasn't super clear on the story i think. Originally I had a coolant leak, and I couldn't find it so I took to dealership and asked them to find it. They said there was no leak. And decided to tune up some other stuff instead. I picked it up and drove it on a 400 Mile road trip down to Portland and back, on the way back on a 100+ Degree day going up a mountain pass (the rotting hose that I could not get too behind the engine on the firewall that I told the mechanic I strongly suspected was my leak as I saw some steam and smelled a little antifreeze, which is why I took it to them) blew out and I lost coolant and she overheated pretty good before I could cool her down with stream water.

I parked it for about a month, and then took it back to the dealer and told them what happened and figured it was going to be head gasket time. As a mater of fact I told them to just do them. As I knew the 3.0 gasket history. After 3 weeks of runarounds and no calls, I finally picked it up. They did a top end valve job only, and charged me $900. And I protested that they didn't do the gaskets like i asked them too. They said that there was no need to that i didn't get it that hot they could tell. Well about 200 miles later my exhaust pipe became a green fire hose.. Had it towed back to the dealership and they tried to sell me a new engine for $2,500 + another $1,500 or so in labor. I let them know I was going to sue them, as I had copies of all my original requests and dialog stating what I wanted them to fix. So after several days of yelling and threatening they pulled the heads. And gave me a list of items that I would need to replace.

Fuel Pressure thingy on the back end of fuel rail(that is known to start fires)

PCV Valve

Knock Sensor

TPS

I declined these:

Denso brand Cap/Rotor/Wires (As my Bosch were only 2 weeks old)

Throughout this nightmare The stumble/sputter issue has been there. And all total of 5 trips to the dealerhip I have asked them to figure it out, on the last time for the heads they said it was a slam dunk TPS.

Prior to the major work:

4 years ago when it first started:

Replaced Igniter / Coil No help

Replaced the Alternator (It died, no help)

Cleaned and checked all fuse box points, No help.

Complete timing belt and all those parts, ran better but did not help this problem at all.

I have been through the vacuum lines 300 times.

Replaced O2 Sensor

Replaced the VAFM, did not help (So I took it back)

Have tested everything I can get a Ohm meter onto to no avail!

I pulled lots of hair out - No help!

Pulled 50 Call machine gun out - made threats... No help!

I am down to thsese:

Igniter #2 is bad?

Distributer is roasted?

ECM is hosed?

Its all in my head and I need a shrink?

Couple things I noticed this weekend:

Timing mark seams to creep up from 10 to about 12-14 and back, in a rather noticeable pattern. Its not random nor really jumpy.

Shorting TE1 & E1 dos not change timing, or idle or make any noticeable change to running.

I still have no trouble codes.

More tests:

Put beefy old vacuum gauge on the manifold, holds 17-18 and really stable.

Hooked up an old school "Engine Analyser" I got at a yard sale. And used the tach on it, and discovered that the in-dash tach is not accurate. I re-adjusted the idle and timing to 11 BTDC with TE1-E1 Shorted. It does idle and run a little better. But still has the same problem.

I also noticed that the RPM is not precisly stable and bounces about 50 revs or so in about the same frequency as the movement of the timing marks.

Hooked up a basic Air / Fuel meter.. readouts look to be normal from what I can gather. I don't have experience with one of these things. Only strange one is that it cycles back and forth when idling HOT. not sure on that one.

Checked the PAIR valve system and its all working in spec. I did disconnect the vacuums to it but still no change.

Inspected the EGR and its all seams to pass the mustard as well.


Where would I find and how do I test the Engine Coolant Temperature Sensor?

Another night under the hood. And I learned something new!

I hooked up my fancy timing light, and put it on each individual plug wire, pointed it at the ground and fired it off in 10 second intervals for about 1 min per plug. I could not detect visually any pattern for a miss on any one cylinder . They all were quite stable. At 800 RPM there is 13 pulses per second, the human eye can catch a miss in the pattern at this speed.

After this I got the bright idea to drop the inductance coil onto the main coil wire to the distributor. This should be about 80 pulses per second, It should stay on pretty steady and but still be a noticeable pulsation. What i see is not steady, there is a lot of flickering here, and it is very random, both in length and timing. With a slight increase in RPM it became more noticeable. And I had the engine idling after about an hour long drive so it was very very hot. This time i actually noticed some missing in the exhaust sounds while I was revving. Between 1000 - 1500 is the worst, and the light smooths out pretty good over that. @ 1500 RPM it would be close to 150 pulses per second, I doubt my timing light can keep up with that, but I would wager if it misses several consecutive pulses it would be detectable.

So I just ordered an Igniter and Distributor. I envision that if I had an O scope I could probe the wires on the Igniter and to the coil and see if the signals to "Fire" are being sent to them or not. But I don't have access to one of those.

Just bought a used Distributor from a nice dude out in MT and Installed it. I notice it is a lot quieter in the engine compartment. I have had a howel coming from what I beleived was my cheap AutoZone Reman Alternator, Its early but I think it may have been the Dizzy making that growing/howeling noise. I will road test a little later and update.

- I AM VERY EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE -

I have solved this problem, and my rig is running smoother and quieter and pepy'ier than ever before. It was the distributor after all! In the quest to solve my issues I have used just about every fuel and TB cleaner in the market, and after changing out the disssy I still had some minor missing so I decided to pull the plugs again. This time they were caked in white ashy deposits. Research tells me it is from my additives. The good news is all 6 plugs looked the same. Replaced those and just for good measure the plug wires again and Poof! She runs like a dream! Also notice that a pinging issue I have had for YEARS is gone. And I no longer detect a howling noise I had attributed to the cheap rebuilt alternator I bought from AutoZone.

One other note - The timing mark is dead on every cycle. There is no bounce of more than fraction of the size of the mark itself.

Awesome. And thanks for the path in your troubleshooting. Dizzys don't go bad often in these, but they do eventually. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

ERrrrrrrrrrrrGGGGGG - One thing always leads to another!!

So back at it here.

So during all the trial and error of troubleshooting I had pulled my plugs and they were pretty heavily caked with white ashy deposits. From what I have read it sounded most likely due to all the cleaners I have ran through the gas to solve the running issues. Now after just 1800 miles the brand new NGK spec plugs are varnished with a bit of a white hard crystal but not really thick yet. I put the timing light on it the other day because she seamed to be running a little rough again, and I noticed some pinging <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> too. When i hit the light the timing mark was dancing allover the place, just as before. Thats when I pulled the the #1 plug and sanded the terminal put it back in, and the timing went back to solid on.

Prior - I took a ~1500 mile trip last week and I noticed that I was getting insane gas millage one tank of Cheveron regular got almost 23 miles to the gallon. Which does not seam right for this car at all. Best ever i can recall was 18 on a road trip. I still had a huge lack of real power, and almost no hill pulling power. And when I am pulling a hill I still get some pinging though not what I use to hear.

I am almost positive I am running Lean, I can find all kinds of information on running rich but nothing to speak of on a lean problem. What should I be checking? I still have no codes!

I pulled the fuel filter and its not restricted, its actually pretty clean which makes sense since its only a few years old with about 6K on it. The fuel rail is a little pulse-ey so it sounds like the regulator is working? I dont know how to test that system. The Injectors are really clickey, i put a stethoscope on them and they all sound the same. And I have heard this is normal for this engine. But would low pressure increase the noise level?

All the plugs looked the same. And I re-checked the gaps on them. They look to me like a lean burn issue. No carbon on them at all. My first car was carbureted and I had a lean burn that toastified some valves and the plugs looked very similar to me.

I pulled and inspected the O2 sensor, it is in spec according to my meter, but maybe i guess could be an issue but it's also pretty new. I soaked it in CRC cleaner and gently cleaned it.

Any ideas would be helpful I don't want to burn up valves, or worse. Is there any kind of real adjustment for this?

Thank you!

I am doing a lot of talking to myself these days, apparently.

Just to update, I just replaced the Bosch universal O2 sensor with a Denso OEM. We shall see if it makes any difference...

300 miles on the new O2 Sensor, and I notice that my millage is back down to about 18 highway which is much more believable than the 23 i was getting. Engine also sounds a little different. I have not pulled a plug yet but I intend to do so later today. I cant say with any certainty that I have picked up any power at all.

Still I notice that when the engine is fully warm and hit the timing light that the mark still bounces around. Can someone please tell me if this is normal for this engine?

Thank you!