So I just drove from southern Arizona to Portland. During the drive I had to pass a slow driver and when I did, the car essentially gave up and the dsc light/limp mode turned on. Luckily I was able to get home but had a horrible time getting over the mountains. Anything over 5psi in a tall gear and sub 3.5-4k rpm caused horrible misfires. When I got home I replaced the F3 fuse which got rid of all the codes besides the P0301. The car is definitely running on three cylinders. I unpluged cylinder one's spark plug wire and the car runs absolutely no different that with it plugged in. Before testing that I removed the spark plugs and two of the four were missing parts of the tips and porcelain. One was cylinder one. I replaced them with OEM plugs (until I can source brisks) and no change. The coil is a brand new MSD coil which ran fine till I passed that guy. I tried cleaning the coil pack plug but nothing changed.

I am going to grab a compression tester tomorrow and am praying its not a toasted valve. I'm stuck up s**t creek financially without this , Any other ideas?

 

but in general the standard troubleshooting techniques still apply. Check for spark in the cylinder that isn't firing. Swap injectors around to see if the misfire moves with the injector. But I'm guessing it's valve/ring/head gasket/piston type problems but hope that it's not....

chewed up spark plug tips isn't a good sign, and lends me to believe that you were running really lean and bad things happened.

Matt

 

it supremely reeks of fuel when I sat at a stop so I dont think its an injector but I can try. I might have to look to see if Im getting spark but with brand new coil and wires....oh FML. I just hope the head isn't horribly marred.

 

would I still be able to build 10 plus psi of boost with a toasted valve? I am lost. Need to get a compression tester but I have no wheels...

 

I think I have all the valves from when I had my head done...

Let me know if you need them....

Matt

 

I did a dry and wet (oil) compression test and one cylinder is 60 dry and 75-80 wet. That leads me to think its scored piston walls from the destroyed spark plugs.
The weird thing is that cylinder is not firing at all. Spark is good, I checked that. Any ideas?

 

Bad injector,stuck valve,hole in piston

 

would mean that your oil filler would smell like gas as well. You're basically squirting it into the crankcase (not good at all).

Matt

 

the excess fuel had to have been coming out of the exhaust. I'm going to pull the injector tomorrow to see if it was damaged. If its not that...I might shelve the MINI till after Army OCS since I can't afford a new block. Or Ill drive it on three cylinder's till it detonates. I unplugged that cylinder's fuel injector for the time being to reduce any wash out and fire hazard