bclexus

#1 You can test to see if the injector's internal solenoid is working (firing) by touching the tip of a [really] long screwdriver to the injector and placing your ear on the end of the screwdriver's handle to listen (like a stethoscope) for the injector's clicking, which indicates the injector is receiving the voltage signal and is operating. What you will not be able to determine is if the injector's spray tip is clogged-up or if the spray pattern is bad.


#2 If a coil is bad it will throw a code and turn on the CIL. You'll also feel a rough running engine as it will misfire, especially under a load.


#3 Yes! When a sensor fails - or is disconnected by whatever means - it always throws a code because the vehicle's computer (e.g. ECU) does not receive the necessary input signal from that sensor.

As it stands right now you have a new spark plug in that one cylinder that had the crusty spark plug. I'd crank it up and drive the car to see how it performs on a casual 5 mile drive. See if the engine misses or stumbles - see if it throws a CIL and find out what codes (if any) it does throw. You may have actually fixed the problem (and just don't realize it) as you did your tidy-up work after replacing the spark plugs and reinstalling that hose you left disconnected. It might (hopefully) run like it is new and not throw a CIL or any codes. If after driving the car around for 5 miles or so and it performs normally I'd continue to drive the car as usual. Maybe after a few hundred miles of driving the car you might want to pull the spark plug for the cylinder that produced the crusty spark plug to see if it looks normal. If it does look normal and there's been no CIL or codes thrown since now I'd say whatever problem you once had is now gone.

If it's hard-to-start you may need to clean the MAF sensor, but that's doubtful unless you had disconnected the battery.

Good luck to you. Let us know how it goes...

jgscott

iTrader: (1)

Disregarding the intake post. I would also switch that coil around with a new plug and see if it follows the problem on the new cylinder and discontinues on the original problem to detect if it was the coil. I have seen coil problems where it didn't code show that exact cylinder until later on. It would just read misfire on all cylinders at 1st, and/or no code at all due to the ecu trying to adjust in range until it got out of the ecu's adjustment range.

On another note, I agree that the problem unknown may be now fixed to never show up again. But I would also just check back at 1K miles to see what it looks like in there. Also to get the ignition problem to code it will show up more likely by abruptly flooring the car from say 20mph briskly.

Neophyte2b

Thank you all for your help! You guys are great! I'll work on the suggestions, and let everyone know how it goes. Hopefully it's nothing 🙂

Neophyte2b

Maybe I'm imagining things, but since changing the sparkplugs, I feel like the car is accelerating better.

bclexus

The question is - Has there been a CIL with codes thrown since you've obviously driven the car some? Apparently the engine did not run rough or miss when you drove the car. I'd say it's back to square-one and operating/performing the way it should.

Unless you are just real curious, I don't think I'd even pull the spark plug from that cylinder that produced the crusty plug to see what it looks like after driving the car some. My bet is, that cylinder's spark plug looks perfect.

Sounds like you fixed whatever the problem was that caused the crusty spark plug during your post-sparkplug replacement cleanup!. It was likely that disconnected hose or something with the injector or coil for that one cylinder.

PS - New spark plugs won't make an ounce of difference in performance compared spark plugs with 200k miles on them.