94 Explorer misfiring issue

[mmontgom]

My 94 xlt started misfiring and stalling about 2weeks ago; so far I haven't been able to figure out what the problem is. It barely runs, and when it does run, it shakes and blows black smoke and some liquid gas out the exhaust, and sounds like it's running on 2 or 3 cylinders. I checked that there's spark going to each cylinder, and I tried replacing the throttle position sensor, the o2 sensors, and the EGR gasket, and I checked the maf sensor and PCV valve (all of those were things that my research said might be causing the problem.) I'm pretty much at a loss here, any suggestions?

 

[DintDobbs]

My friend, it sounds like you have got some kind of NASTY misfire going on. Not to make dumb suggestions, but you don't suppose your coils and/or plug wires are messed up and it's firing out of order (could be caused by static transfer or arcing)? Positive spark doesn't mean correct firing order.

I've never known smoke to be caused by bad coils/wires, just a shot in the dark here...

You don't suppose somebody tampered with the vehicle or put something in the fuel tank, do you?

 

[mmontgom]

My friend, it sounds like you have got some kind of NASTY misfire going on. Not to make dumb suggestions, but you don't suppose your coils and/or plug wires are messed up and it's firing out of order (could be caused by static transfer or arcing)? Positive spark doesn't mean correct firing order.

I've never known smoke to be caused by bad coils/wires, just a shot in the dark here...

You don't suppose somebody tampered with the vehicle or put something in the fuel tank, do you?

Hey, sorry for the late response; I was didn't have internet access for a bit.
I checked the order of the wires on the coil and they were all going to the correct cylinder, so I don't think it's the wrong firing order unless the coil itself is messed up. I just double checked the gap on the spark plugs, and they were all about .01 too small (.040 when they should have been .054). After I re-gapped them, it was running better, but still not very well (went from sounding like it was firing on just 2 or 3 cylinders and not starting to starting but sounding like it was running on 4 or 5 cylinders). As for bad fuel or something in the tank, I put a bottle of Cataclean in the tank the day before it started running bad, and since there were almost no symptoms before it went dead I'm kind of suspicious of the cataclean, but I'm not sure what it could have done to mess up the engine that bad. I suppose it could also be bad fuel, but that seems unlikely. . .
Thanks!

 

[A .SCOTT]

Here's a link I read about Cataclean. I've read that some fuel cleaners can damage certain type of injectors.
Problems After Using Cataclean You Should Notice Right Away

 

[DintDobbs]

Well, that's interesting. Fuel additives can bring forth weird results. Might want to fill up to dilute it with regular gasoline and just see what happens.

If it did gnarl up the injectors, they probably could have been changed any way, at this age - not necessarily a great loss. I hope that's all it was. If that's the only change since you added it in there, it's very probably that that is the only issue.

 

[410Fortune]

You need to check your fuel pressure