HELP cyl 3 misfire! QUICK!!!

DiS

In Soviet Russia...
Contributor
:
2016 Subaru WRX Crystal White Pearl
Hey all. Bleh, 2 days ago I installed the Jspec camshaft and everything was fine till today. I started my car, and I had CEL on. Went to autozone and OBDII showed cylinder 3 misfire. Guy told me that its probably the wire. I mean, it couldnt be spark plug because we didnt even touch those. During the camshaft instalation we just removed the coils and plug wires. BUMMER. How much are the wires and coils at the dealer anyone!?!?! HELP
 
s***. As autozone guy said. I just went outside. Unplugged the cylinder 3 plug wire along with cylinder 1 plug wire. Left them out for about 5 minutes. Plugged them back in. Wiggled around...reset the battery, and no CEL anymore! for now. Hopefully it wont turn back on. And if it will, then I will know thats the god damn wires.
 
Well, the reason your CEL is gone is because you disconnected the battery, which reset the ECU.

I have extra wires if you wanna try that.

Your cam timing COULD be off. But i really hope not.
 
Did u degree the cam when u installed it? Did u make sure the cam gears and cam timing belt were remounted and assembled exactly as before?
 
Dana: Thanks man! I hope my wires are fine, but we'll see in the next few days. Ill try the tip with higher octane gasoline.

akhilleus: Dana helped me out big time installing the intake camshaft. I really think that the timing is correct, but I could be wrong. Plus it was a real b**** to realign the cam gears and timing belt but we did it. So I hope its not the aligning problem...I hope.

Plus when CEL turned on, I drove it to autozone for 5 miles and it felt normal as before.
 
DiS said:
Hey all. Bleh, 2 days ago I installed the Jspec camshaft and everything was fine till today. I started my car, and I had CEL on. Went to autozone and OBDII showed cylinder 3 misfire. Guy told me that its probably the wire. I mean, it couldnt be spark plug because we didnt even touch those. During the camshaft instalation we just removed the coils and plug wires. BUMMER. How much are the wires and coils at the dealer anyone!?!?! HELP
Just a word of caution, get the code from the Autozone guy and look it up in the manual.

I went to Autozone to get a code checked and cleared and they said it was P1170 (which I saw and knew to be the front O2 sensor) but their little hand held said it was a MAF voltage issue.

So, sometimes their reader isn't correct for the Protege. It probably depends on what software the little hand held is running, I would guess.
 
How does your car run other than the misfire? If your cam gear is off by a tooth, it's around 12-15 degrees advance/retard, so your car would run like s***. If the powerband is the same as it was before, you won't have a problem.

When I installed my cam, I installed it with straight up timing. Since it was an exhaust cam installed as an intake cam, it's phasing is a bit off, so until I get my cam gears next week, I won't be able adjust the cam timing properly.

Why don't you try taking on of the plugs and wire from another cylinder, switch them, and see what happens. Worse comes to worst, you'll have to buy new wires.
 
well the car runs the same as before 2 days ago, meaning fine. So I dont think its the plugs. Its probably the wires, but also might be the timing off by 5 degrees but timing is my least that i think happened. Since it runs normally.
 
Probably just wiggled one of the wires off a little bit accidentally- the plug wires may not have seated correctly which would throw the cel for you... My .02
 
AH HORSE NUTS!!!! Last night, I went outside to warm my car up before going to work, the damn CEL turned on again. Man, I hope my cam timing is not off by few degrees. s***!

Dana, how about those wires (burn)
 
If the car runs fine, but the CEL is on, it's not your cam. If the cam was horribly out of degree, it would either run like crap, or have no power, or peaky power.
 
Gen1GT said:
If the car runs fine, but the CEL is on, it's not your cam. If the cam was horribly out of degree, it would either run like crap, or have no power, or peaky power.

by saying peaky power, you mean it would Pull like crazy?
 
Make sure that something else isn't broken or still unplugged.

When I tried to do the Phenolic spacers, I accidentally broke off one of the VICS solenoids.
 
Action Jackson said:
Make sure that something else isn't broken or still unplugged.

When I tried to do the Phenolic spacers, I accidentally broke off one of the VICS solenoids.

well when Dana and me were assembling everything...everything seemed in place. No extra pieces, no extra unplugged wires. So I dont think anything is unplugged but Ill check in few minutes. Ill try and get new wires and let everyone know.
 
DiS said:
well when Dana and me were assembling everything...everything seemed in place. No extra pieces, no extra unplugged wires. So I dont think anything is unplugged but Ill check in few minutes. Ill try and get new wires and let everyone know.
Get the actually code number and post it.

Someone here will be able to look it up in the shop manual for you and tell you what it is.

Some of the Ford codes do not match up with Mazda codes.

Or, you can look it up yourself here: http://protege5.ugly.net/
 
P0303 which is a cylinder 3 misfire. I remember the number from the OBDII at autozone.
 
DiS said:
P0303 which is a cylinder 3 misfire. I remember the number from the OBDII at autozone.
Ok cool. That is indeed the misfire. The shop manual gives you some steps to go through to try to fix the problem too...
 
DiS - I have a sprace set of wires lying around that we can test with if you feel like coming down for an hour or so sometime soon.

Also, not sure if DiS mentioned it - but ever since we did the cam install, the idle has been a little lumpy...it goes back and forth between 600-800rpm constantly.

Also, one mroe thing not mentioned...when we were playing with the tensionor spring, we think that Dis accidentally stretched it, so we had to use some ghetto techniques to shorten the spring. It may not be tensioning the timing belt correctly.

I drove the car myself, it seemed pretty normal and linear.
 
Kooldino said:
DiS - I have a sprace set of wires lying around that we can test with if you feel like coming down for an hour or so sometime soon.

Also, not sure if DiS mentioned it - but ever since we did the cam install, the idle has been a little lumpy...it goes back and forth between 600-800rpm constantly.

Also, one mroe thing not mentioned...when we were playing with the tensionor spring, we think that Dis accidentally stretched it, so we had to use some ghetto techniques to shorten the spring. It may not be tensioning the timing belt correctly.

I drove the car myself, it seemed pretty normal and linear.

Dana, when are you free? I can come anytime on Wednsday or Thursday.

Im probably asking too much and by now you already hate my car on your day off but How about some engine mounts (peep)
 
LOL, well I don't have off this Weds, but like I said, I can help out for an hour or so maybe Thursday night.
 
Back