Cylinder #5 Misfire. Help...

[00FlowCamaro]

Periodically my car would stutter and putter and I knew something was wrong but whenever I decided to go work on it, it would go away or only last for a short time. Yesterday my Service Engine Soon light came on and it started to putter again, except much worse. I took my car to Autozone and they looked at it. Turns out to be Cylinder #5 is misfiring. I have changed the spark plugs, my wires are like new and my coil pack is good. This leaves me with a dilemma. I got a printout of the stuff it could also be: Vacuum Leak, Injector Fault, High or Low Fuel Pressure. I don't know how to check the last 3. Please for the love of god help me.

[Will]

Fuel pressure test would be easy. Autozone sells a checker for under $50 and it's really easy to use.

[Phantom409]

Well the fuel pressure is easy if you have about 70.00 to buy a Gauge.
There should be a sharder valve on the fuel rail, you just hook it to there and start the car.
You will need to know what range the fuel pressure has to be in.

I would check your wires over really good to make sure that they aren't cracked any where new or not.
If it's arcing you will get a miss fire.
At night with the hood open and no lights start the car, if she is arcing you will see it.

There are gauges you can buy to check vacume.
A vacume leak can be anything from a bad intake gasket to a bad vacume line and are a bugger to find.

[Will]

Would bad vacuum cause a misfire in only one cylinder though? For that matter, would low/high fuel pressure?

[00FlowCamaro]

I checked for arcing last night and there was none. The wires are perfect, I took the #5 wire off and it was still brand new. I also have ruled out a coil pack, because on the 3.8L there are 2 cylinders per coil pack. The #5 and #2 cylinders both go to the same coil pack and #2 is running fine. I also bought a new spark plug this morning and it changed nothing. This misfire is BAD.

[97rs4life]

was a random misfire code getting triggered as well?

[GETGONE]

It could still be a bad coil. I had a 4 banger Sonoma and I put MSD coils on it and when I opened the package of one it fell on the floor and cracked the terminal. I siliconed it and it looked and worked fine for over a year. Then it finally started missing but only on that one cylinder. Try swapping the coil packs around and see if the miss moves.

[00FlowCamaro]

It could still be a bad coil. I had a 4 banger Sonoma and I put MSD coils on it and when I opened the package of one it fell on the floor and cracked the terminal. I siliconed it and it looked and worked fine for over a year. Then it finally started missing but only on that one cylinder. Try swapping the coil packs around and see if the miss moves.

Sounds like a good idea. I'll have to do that later today though since my car is at my moms and all the tools are at my dad.

[GETGONE]

Just need a 13mm wrench or socket to remove the plate they mount to and a 7mm socket to get the bolts out of the coil. If you have small hands you can probably just get the bolts out of the front two coils and swap them without removing them from the car. I kept cutting my hands trying to get them off while still in the car so I just removed the whole mount plate. I put Summit brand replacement coils on it and they work great and are a bit cheaper than MSD but may be made by them since they're red like MSD's.

[00FlowCamaro]

Just need a 13mm wrench or socket to remove the plate they mount to and a 7mm socket to get the bolts out of the coil. If you have small hands you can probably just get the bolts out of the front two coils and swap them without removing them from the car. I kept cutting my hands trying to get them off while still in the car so I just removed the whole mount plate. I put Summit brand replacement coils on it and they work great and are a bit cheaper than MSD but may be made by them since they're red like MSD's.

Last night I removed the coil that I thought might be giving me issues. I didn't remove the plate though. My hands got really cut up as well...

[00FlowCamaro]

So I come back home after a day of running around and I start up my car and right as I do so my service engine light actually turns off. My car runs fine except if you give it some gas. This is so weird...I'm gonna check out prices on coil packs anyways, because more than likely I'll need to replace them soon. Anyone have a good site for v6 coil packs for the 3800?

[Virtue]

if the code was detected and hasn't happend since u started the car 3 times are it will turn off automatically

ever do the fuelpressure test

[00FlowCamaro]

if the code was detected and hasn't happend since u started the car 3 times are it will turn off automatically

ever do the fuelpressure test

I have not.

[GETGONE]

Check Summit for their brand DIS coils. I think they were about $32 each vs $45 for MSD brand. Is your cat bad? Mine was missing and losing power and it wasn't shifting right and I thought it was the trans. Turns out it was a plugged cat.