Driving to work this morning car was running fine. Hit a pothole and now I'm running on 3 cylinders. I changed the plugs #2's was fouled and insulator was cracked by the electrode. No difference. Swapped coils put #2 on #3 and still #2 didn't fire and #3 was fine. No oil in exhaust but very black from carbon (a rich appearance from un-burnt fuel?)
Car has 59,000 miles on it and is not babied. I run gumout FI & system cleaner every 6 months or so.
Sound like a valve issue? Valve Spring? Where are the coils fed from? It's strictly #2 had a guy clear misfire code but It came right back on with the flashing yellow engine light. It doesn't clear up,,,it's running on 3 cylinders.


Any Ideas?


Thanks guys.

 

I guess the first thing I would do is give it a compression test.. That will tell you in a hurry what your for sure dealing with. My guess is you have a valve issue. either exhaust or intake burnt, cracked, or bent. So start with a compression test.. If number 2 cylinder has very little to none. Then you could perform a leak down test to see what it is.. good luck.

 

Thanks, bro! Unfortunately I live in the city. I have to limp it up to my dad's where all my tools are. I have a compression gauge

 

If you have a compression test gauge that will tell you a lot. At least it will tell you if its electrical or mechanical issue. If you have good compression then look more into the ignition side of things. If there is little to no compression well then you pretty much know it to be a valve or ring issue. Whats nice about a leak down test is you can narrow it down even further. To a bad valve intake/exhaust or blow-by from the rings..

 

Have you ever had a carbon cleaning (walnut blasting)?

 

No. But coukd a head gasket blow out just at the edge of that cylinder?
IF there in no compression it seems isolated at that cylinder. Do rings break on these cars?

 

Yes for the head gasket. And yes for the rings.

The leak-down test after the compression test will tell you the answer (at least lead you in the right direction).

 

Thanks

Its sounds though that, if there's no compression, the heads coming of regardless.
I was driving to work at 6:00am this morning, hit a pothole (don't know if that is a factor), and shortly after that lost a cylinder. Wasn't beating on it.