first cylinder is misfiring, looking for cheap or effective ways of narrowing down the problem
this is a pontiac grand am saden 2001 4 cylinder. it has had this problem sense i bought it and it had a short in the side of the plastic cover witch connects to the spark plugs. guessing thats the brain. replaced it and the problem was not as bad. but its still misfiring.
have you tried replacing the plug wires...perhaps a shower in wd-40 would allow the high-voltage to get through (if in a damp environment)- there aren't any valve guide or piston slap noises...just the electrical difficulties...well good morning, we can solve this~ coil packs could be tested for ohms or resistance being identical between the two, the crank angle sensor...before we continue get your OBD-II trouble codes read we could be turning over a few new ones~ from your auto parts store -for free-
http://www.amazon.com/Autel-MaxiScan-MS300-Diagnostic- Vehicles/dp/B001LHVOVK/ref=sr_1_6? s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1366869594&sr=1-6&keywords=obd- ii+reader >>
42 bucks, wish I had one~ still wanting a "power probe" which would enable a guy to "Juice" with twelve circuit breaker volts onto any "iffy" connection~ and reset with a button~
Pull the coil assembly and swap spark plugs with cylinder one and two, swap the boots with one and three, run the car until the check engine flashes and pull the codes again. If it stays with cylinder one then let us know and we can go from there. If it switches to cylinder two then it's a bad plug and if it goes to cylinder three then it's a bad boot. Let us know what happens in any of these cases.
