supercharged 5.0 true fire 98 explorer sport

[vroomzoomboom]

Screamin demon. That's them.

 

[ahodges]

Don, sorry but I have to disagree with you on the MSD's anyhow. I purchased a pair of those and one failed within 500 miles. The guy that tuned my truck said that 100,000 mile stockers were better than any of the aftermarket ones.

 

[vroomzoomboom]

^^^ I remember you telling me that, and that's why I used the stockers lol

 

[gmanpaint]

Could have accidentally broke, or knocked a vac line off when changing the wires. I had a miss come up right after working on something up top, and it turned out I must have pushed on the top of an injector connector, and broke it off, but not so bad I could see it at a glance. I found it after checking them all as part of my search for something loose. That's all I meant by that.

 

[CDW6212R]

Don, sorry but I have to disagree with you on the MSD's anyhow. I purchased a pair of those and one failed within 500 miles. The guy that tuned my truck said that 100,000 mile stockers were better than any of the aftermarket ones.

I hear you. I like hearing what others learn about products or brands. We take it for granted that the big names never make bad products, but paying attention you see it sometimes. I've always liked Accel until these coil packs that failed too soon. We know how high performance stuff is used and treated, but certain high reliability things should be warranted for more than 90 days, or 1 year for some things. Those companies should honor customers better when there are issues with this kind of part.

 

[4pointslow]

If it started right after installing the plugs and wires, it could be a defective spark plug. I have seen them and it catches you by surprise.
Try doing a resistance test across the spark plug, going from where the wire attaches to the center electrode. If you get OL there then the plug is defective.
Do not touch the test leads of your meter when doing resistance tests, your fingers will cause bad readings.

Or you may have messed up the firing order again.......

 

[4pointslow]

Oh, and a power balance test would show which cylinder is not firing. You take an automotive test light and slide it down between the wire and boot until it touches the metal contact. When you short a wire like that the spark is stopped from going to the cylinder and the rpm should drop. If you find a cylinder not dropping then that one is misfiring. If you find two cylinders that when shorted, make the rpm go up then they may be crossed.

 

[vroomzoomboom]

so coil pack was a fail.....nothing changed. dono came by to grab his trans seal instaler and i had him sit in it and wing it to 3000 rpms just so i knew i wasnt losing my mind, and he to said there was a pretty go vibration there.
i grabbed my buddys compression tester today, but i am not sure if i am going to have time this weekend. i have to put rockers on the sport i bought my kid....joy....
when i do the compression test, i will do a ohm test on the plugs. as i said to don, they did come from summit, so they did travel a distance and who knows how they were treated before they came here.
i can almost say i didnt screw the firing order up this time. i did one plug at a time, but i am going to recheck them lol.
as for the power balance test, do you think this will also work?



never hear of it before, so i have never done one either.

 

[4pointslow]

Yes, that's the idea. You can short the wire with a test light many ways and Vacuum hose method works too, I have tried that. Just make your vacuum hoses short as possible if you use that method.

If two wires are crossed it can slow the engine down so shorting one's spark can actually cause it to speed up.
If a coil in a coil pack is dead then the two companion cylinders would have no change when shorted.
If one has no change then that is the one misfiring (by itself). In that case you would then determine if it was compression, spark or air/fuel causing that cylinder to misfire.

I have seen many defective spark plugs where they go open circuit from where the spark plug wire attaches to the center electrode. OL would be an open spark plug.
Also have seen cracks on the porcelain tip around the center electrode from mishandling/shipping.

 

[vroomzoomboom]

so the verdict is in. tried to do a power balance test, but the damn line keep falling out of the coil. so the next (and dreaded) thing was to pull wires one at a time while the motor was running. now if you have never been zapped by a wire, be lucky. those who have (waves hand) will NEVER forget it. i was trying to find a glove thick enough by calling one of my buddys who then said he'd bring his scanner home. which he did. when we hooked it up, #5 was pretty much dead. #8 was also a little iffy. so i once again swapped 2 different coils in. no change. i think i am going to pull those 2 wires, take the ends off and redo them and see if that fixes it. at least the good news is its not the motor thats hurt. just my pride.
i would do this tonight, but the winnipeg jets are playing, and its raining.
yes raining.
hopefully i can do it tomorrow, but they are calling for snow.
yes, rain one day, snow the next.
what the hell is that all about?!?!

 

[gmanpaint]

 

[shucker1]

those who have (waves hand) will NEVER forget it.

 

[vroomzoomboom]

tiny update.
what i did was swap wires 7 to 8, and vise versa, and had to use one of my old wires that i knew was good for #5. then took plugs 5 and 8 and put them in 1 and 2 and vise versa. buddy came back with his scanner and the problem was still at the same cylinders. was talking to andy, and he had told my why if a coil fails it will take down 2 cylinders (the way he explained it to me over the phone made sense). so hoping that those 2 were opposites i checked, and they wernt. today i popped in the compression tester. 5 was reading 180. so i can scratch wires, plugs, valves or compression if you want which leads to 2 things that i can think of. bad injector, or bad injector plug/wire. now what really sucks about this is that the only way i can get to them is pull the supercharger off. didnt realise just how tight i made everything so it would tuck under the hood. now that its spring i can work on it outside, and not freeze my hands off. however there is a new problem. i called the place that i will get to test them. they figure about a week to get done. i also picked up a 05 sport trac that needs a motor. as much as i want to get evil tuned and done with, this trac is the priority because unknown to me (and the guy that sold it to me for that matter) the safty is still valid until may 17. which means if i can sell it before then, i dont have to do it. my driveway/yard isnt big enough to do both at the same time, so it looks like evils going to have to sit for a little bit now....

 

[CDW6212R]

What injectors did you use Tim, were they something reasonable that you could afford to buy another set, even a used flow matched set? I've read people suggest an 80lbs level for almost any blown V8, but I'd guess what your minimum is will be in the 45lbs range. The smaller sizes can be had used for $100 easily, but the bigger stuff is hundreds for a set for sure.

GLWTS of the Sport Trac, sell it before you have to swap a V8 into it.

 

[4pointslow]

You need one of these, if spark can jump this then coil and wire are good.

Easy to hook up too, just clamp on ground and connect ignition wire on other end, then start the engine and watch what happens.
Make sure it says HEI like this one.

If spark and compression are both good it could be a fuel injector problem, or a vacuum leak on one cylinder. (or two if you have two misfires)
Intake manifold gasket where it seals to the cylinder head could be damaged. Cylinders 5 and 8 are at opposite ends of the drivers side head.
I have seen intake gaskets blown on the bottom under the intake so vacuum leak was in the crank case. Milled heads and blocks can cause that.

You can also test the resistance of the fuel injectors from the PCM connector, without removing the supercharger.
You would need a PCM connector view with pins labeled. One test lead would go in the VPWR circuit, and the other in each injector ground one at a time.
Might see around 16 ohms, if good. OL would mean open circuit or injector. (unplugged or bad contact would read OL too.

 

[4pointslow]

Keep in mind you said it started after installing plugs and wires, are you sure it is not crossed wires?

 

[vroomzoomboom]

very positive on it not being wires crossed. when i made the new wires up, i did them one at a time. and i should say i noticed it after i changed the wires. we had it on a snap on scanner and it showed that cylinder not doing much of anything. if you also look back a page i have the #5 plug out and it looks like it had spark coming from it.

 

[vroomzoomboom]

posting for reference. noting to see here. move along now!

 

[vroomzoomboom]

wait! come back!

the reason for the injector number is incase i ever need it for what ever reason. now the reason why i was able to get the injector number was i found 2 things this weekend. motivation, and nice weather. so i popped the blower and mount off so i could get to them. i swapped them around to see if there was a change.
well...um, yes and no.

this is buddys scan tool (worth as much as my motor, eek!) its up to date so its accurate.

this pic was what it was reading when at idle

no change. but when you rev it, everything normalised (the pic was too blurry after i downloaded it off my phone). conclusion, im a idiot. sorta. like dono, and don lasorta both said, the O2's were reading ok. the vibration? buddy pointed out that it might be a bad motor mount, or a part of the exhaust rubbing the frame (and if i do have a bad mount, that just might happen as well). also, me being the bone head that i am, i never thought of (for what ever reason) to get new mounts when i put the motor in.
guess whats getting ordered from rock auto tonight.......and coils. god knows how old they are as well.

 

[Dono]

I hope your right. It's very odd that the vibration is in a 500 rpm window at higher revs.
Its great news all cylinders are good.