Wanted Help with misfiring on my 1997 5.0L Explorer.

[lil'mounty]

As far as burnt valve. The valve does look like it got pretty hot. All the carbon is yellow ash.

 

[lil'mounty]

THEGIRLIN, I just realized about your plug wires, since you doing them, Where the wires run down behind the alternator, make sure the wires are not touching the back of the alternator, I cooked two alt's in a month because of that.

 

[rjcooperss396]

The heads were E7TE.

 

[thegirlin48127]

Well I replaced the wires cleaned out the exaust (washed them out like you said to do) and sea foamed it (without the exaust on it) and its running better now(no chugging or misfiring)... But there is still some kind of issue with it... Now it shifts great when you step on the gas and if you get the rpm just right it'll shift smooth BUT it's still shifting hard if you let off of the gas while its shifting through the gears.... the trans mount and throttle body gasket is in need of replacement do you think that one of these may be the issue?

 

[thegirlin48127]

thanks for the wire tip ... I'll make sure they aren't touching the alt.

 

[thegirlin48127]

Well after i changed the wires and cleaned out the cat converters/mufflers... I have now had the codes cleared and the engine is running great...scanned the engine again with no codes coming up)...its still shifting hard sometimes (like when I let off of the gas) I'm going to change the trans mount and see if that clears up that issue with it (I also believe that if I get a new exaust system then it'll clear up the hard shifting problem it has occasionally) ...I'll give you the update when I change the other parts and have the exaust worked on

 

[TekMan05]

Did you guys have to cut the exhaust to get it off in the front?

 

[thegirlin48127]

I did cut the pipes to get it off of the front...thats what happens when you take the fast easy way out... the bolts and connectors were just so rusted up and looked like they had been on there since the truck was built (making it 14 yrs of rust build up) I cut them off in a place where it was easy to get back together with a coupling and 2 compression clamps ...I just figured that was easier than trying to cut the bolts off (because the bolts on the flange were harder to access and so rusted that you really couldn't even tell they were bolts anymore) ..I ended up cutting the bolts that were by the trans mount also to be able to slide the front part of the pipes out of the way and just went to the hardwear store and got new hardened no. 8 nuts and bolts to put that back together (alot cheaper than getting them at the auto parts store)

 

[TekMan05]

I ask because I'm looking to replace my front cats with some higher flowing ones. I'm looking to expand the piping from my cat-back to right behind the collector flange to 2.5''. I'm still trying to figure which route I'm gonna about doing it. The last speed shop was quoting me 1200 bucks for that front section in front of where used to be my Rear cats to the flanges and high flow cats. That was rediculous. So I'm trying to see if maybe I could use some flex piping and extra stainless steel piping from ebay along with my friend who has a welder and see if we can do it ourselves.