Hey Everyone,

First off wanted to introduce myself and the car. I have always owned imports of some type and I am not too familiar with American cars but lately it seems I am learning pretty quickly with the latest problem I have.
The car is a 2000 v6 auto vert. Car has high miles (170 k) but has run great up until a 2 weeks ago. I purchased the car for my girlfriend a month ago and while my car is in the shop I have been driving it around. I was greatly impressed how great the car drove and ran for the high miles (all highway miles) but attributed it to all highway miles that kept the car feeling new.

This past weekend I noticed a misfire under 2500 rpms. It was slightly noticeable on idle with a minor vibration but under load it felt like I was driving down a slightly bumpy road at 1500 rpms. The car would smooth out just fine on interstate speeds. I decided to do the regular items and replaced the plugs. Soon after I replaced he plugs I had a check engine light on which ultimately read misfire in cylinder number one. I went ahead and bought new wires, coil, and another plug for that cylinder. I reset the code myself and it has notcome back on since.

This miss was just as bad if not worse and brought it to a mechanic friend of mine. He is ASE certified and is one of the most competent mechanic I know. He ended up putting it on a diagnostic machine. There were no stored codes, showed all injectors were working as well as all sensors. If we powered breaked the car to 1500 rpm's you could feel the car and engine shake right before the tires would brake loose. He said the issue only really happened under load. He checked the O2 sensors under load and he said that BANK one sensor two was running very rich during the miss.

Now if we let the car cool down it would not do it for the first minute or two but would combine shortly after. He decided he felt it could be three other things. Bad driver in the PCM, Low compression in that cylinder or a leaky injector for that cylinder. He used a testlight on the new coil while the car was running to determine that it was in fact cylinder number one causing the issue.

I did a quick compression test on that cylinder earlier today. I did it with the rest of the plugs in using a plunger style adapter (my two screw on adapters did not fit) Knowing that the plunger types read low I was still happy with the 120 psi reading I got. I still need to do another cylinder to compare but that number does not seem to be low enough to be the cause of the misfire.

Also the car does not put out any white smoke and even though their is black soot on the tailpipe you can only get a very small amount of black smoke to come out when the car is repeatedly floored. When I pulled the plug out to do the test I examined the plug and it had some wet substance on it but very heavily smelled of gasoline.
I am hoping it is a leaky injector that is stuck open but in order to swap it I would need to pull off the intake manifold which does not seem like alot of fun. Any ideas or thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks
Steve

 

I had a Ford Ranger with a 2.3 a while back doing the same thing and it turned out to be a bad IAC. As long as the IAC's motor works the computer doesn't know and won't throw a code even if the plunger is sticking.

 

2000's are know for bad baffles in the valvecover which allow too much oil to be sucked up into the intake through the PCV valve. run seafoam through the PCV line. that will clean any deposits off of the intake valves which you probably have really bad and can cause a miss at because the valve is ladened with the deposits it can't close fast enough. the wetness on the plug is most likely oil and fuel. which is a symptom of the bad baffles allowing too much oil to be sucked up. you can easily fix the PCV line by installing a small catch bulb in-line between the PCV and the intake.

while your at it change the PCV valve,fuel filter and check all the vacume lines for dry rot

if it throws a check engine light there should be a stored code

 

cobra,

I will try that today but, why do you think it would only cause number one to miss? I could see if I had an overall miss through out the engine but Only one cylinder is missing right now. I can assume that just one of the unlucky valves for cylinder number one has been infected the most and is now showing the brunt of the problems.

would i just pull the hose off and stick it in a bottle of seafoam when the engine was running? I need to pick up a bottle today and check ito out.

 

cobra,

also since the pcv valce is on the drivers side wouldn't that afect that side of the engine more?number one is on the passenger side.

raz

where is the iac and how can i tell if it is working without replaceing it?

 

thats odd... i have a 2000 5spd... i also had the same problem and the code read the same as urs... i took it in for a tune up/ 90k mile service... and it runs normal again.. i took my car to Ford to see what they reccommend, and they said that i basically need a tune up... i declined their service [only bcuz they overcharge/ $400.00 for a tune up? wtf???] and took it to a mom-n-pop shop, they charged me $200 for the full 20 something point inspection, new platinum plugs, new wires, new everything... and it runs great... i would suggest that u take it to Ford and tell them what you're experiencing, then see would they would "reccommend" and decline the service if its too much for u, then take it to a diff shop and have them do what Ford would do..

if it worked for me, it should work for u too...[8D]

 

The IAC is on the left rear of the intake as you face the engine. The way we tested it was to connect the truck to a diagnostic computer and cycle the IAC with it off so we could watch the plunger. We never could figure out why it was only affecting the number 1 cyl but that's the one that came up with a miss fire.

 

i just pulled the iac off and i had a friuend start the car while i looked out for it. I could see the small little plunger make a noise and then move. The car obviously would only run for a few seconds with it off not sure if that means anything about the plunger.

 

doesn't matter which side the PCV is on94-98's in on the passenger side but the PCV line is connected to the main runner in the plenum. usually #1 and #6 display oil soak with the 99 and 2000 cars.

use the seafoam only on a cold engine as it is flammable. you don't want it igniting in a hot intake mafnifold.

everything else should store a code if it's a bad plug or IAC or Cam Position sensor. sometimes the cranksensors when they are old don't work as good as they should on alot of cars but that usually causes then not to restart till they cool.

you also could have a leak in the lower manifold gasket allowing oil to be sucked into #1 but my money is on the PCV as that was a very common problem with the 99 and 2000's as well as windstars with the 3.8/4.2

here is an excellent writeup on the problem
http://www.miracerros.com/mustang/pcv_filter.htm

 

nice screen name [&:]