The past few months I've been having some very odd "Studdering" problems when under heavy load below 3.5RPM's.
Yesterday when I was rooting around my engine in search of the problem I found that one of my Spark Plug Wires was pretty loose. I thought this may be causing the problems so I tried to push it on further but I could never get it on as tight as the others. After inspecting it and comparing it to the other Wires it looks as though the metal core is significatly shorter (Deeper in the boot) than the other wires. I inspected the plug and it did seem a bit richer then the one next to it and it had some white buildup on the back of the plug. (Where the wire connects)
Well After playing with the wire a bit more I finally got it seated tighter. I took it for a ride and for a bit it definatly seemed to have fixed the problems....noticable low-end power increase.
After a couple miles all hell broke loose. When launching timidly from first I would get bogged down and almost like a whole cylinder wasn't firing....it was very up and down....once I got up to speed it wasn't as bad but definatly not right.....After I made it home I cleared the PCM thinking maybe it needed to recalibrate since?? I let it idle for a couple mins and I noticed a *CLick CLick Click* noise. The noise was coming from the same spark plug I had been messing with.
I thought maybe the wire is bad so I swapped the single wire out with my OEM wires (The rest being 9mm FMS) After the Clicking noise seemed to go away! I test drove it several times with no problems and even swapped the old wire back on several times and each time the Clicking noise came back!
Anyways sorry for the long post but I have 2 questions:
1) Anyone ever return FMS 9mm wires and could the deeper core be causing the plug to Arc and/or Miss. IS that usually what the clicking noise is?
2) Messing around with the wires didn't seem to correct my studdering problem below 3.5KRPM's . I have read of several others having similar problems below 3.5K but no one ever solved it and they are usually older cars. At any rate anyone have idea's? IT seems to only happen under heavy load/Acceleration below 3.5KRPM's. Its very noticable too! IT did seem to begin shortly after I changed my spark Plugs. I have tried the following things:
- Cleaned MAF
- Cleaned EGR Passages
- Reset ECU
- Monitored O2 Sensor Voltage (Nothing Strange)
Could it be TPS? Any other thoughts? Maybe I gapped the plugs wrong...what would this result in?
Thanks!
