Please help!!! Simple issue or new engine?

[poohlikeshunny]

I have replaced my stripped sparkplug and rethreaded the stripped plug hole, my car fires up ok, but will only rev up smoothly if you slowly increase the throttle. (btw, this is on a 96 m44)

If you try to give it a sudden blip of throttle, it revs up rough unless you ease up on the throttle. I did replace only one plug (the stripped one) and am wondering if that could be the culprit of the feel of the misfiring. The other 3 plugs are about 5k miles in.

Also, the part of the wire that snaps into the top of the plug (coil?) still snaps on fine in cylinder 2, but the rubber is ripped. Would this cause any issues?


TIA!!!

[Xenocide]

No clue man. Does your intake boot have a hole in it by any chance? Just went and looked in my garage for a set of plug wires, I thought I had an extra but no luck. Make sure your spark plugs are torqued down properly. It is possible that the torn rubber boot on that is cause your coil pack to ground out. I would replace those plug wires ASAP. Autozone sells bosch wires for $135 or something with a lifetime warranty. Back when I had my M42 one of the plug wires did that after 10k and they replaced the entire set no questions asked.

[b-rad]

ABSOLUTELY need to change plug wires. Cracked boot is no bueno. Check to make sure youre not leaking from the re-threaded plug hole. run it w/o that wire in place, and just feel for air rushing from plug hole.
I doubt its any sort of vacuum/air leak, you would most likely have a rough idle.

Bliping throttle dumps more fuel and air to cyl, which increases resistance across plug gap. Spark naturally will follow the easiest path to ground, which at the given moment may be to the head via the cracked boot.

[tiFreak]

was the rubber cracked already or did that happen around the time you had to retap the spark plug hole? you definitely have to replace it but it might not be the problem

[poohlikeshunny]

Xenocide, I don't see any holes but the rips do not allow it to seal properly...I notice that if i pull the coil out when the engine is running, it arcs to the valve cover (grounding out?) from near a tiny hairline rip in the boot about once inch from the tip. When I pulled another coil, it did arc at all on the way out. Hopefully that is the culprit?

b-rad, makes sense...after seeing what I saw in the previous paragraph, it makes sense...i put my hand over the hole too and I did not feel any air or any pulsations of any sort...now that the plug and insert sleeve are in together.

tifreak, the boot ripped when my sparkplug blew out of my engine, and it destroyed the boot on the way out. The threading was stripped just enough to not hold itself in there anymore. So I'm going to go ahead and replace all four wires (should i replace the coil too? is there a way to check it?)...but what else do you think it could be if it's not that? everything ran normal up until the whole sparkplug debacle...

TIA!!

[tiFreak]

don't replace the coil yet, replace the wires and maybe the other 3 spark plugs and if you still have problems, then replace the coil

[poohlikeshunny]

good deal...I'll try that first. would that rip in the boot be able to cause a leak of some sort? If the ripped boot is not the actual problem and it is a leak, am I doomed to buying a new head or is there a solution to fixing a leak there?

[b-rad]

There is no sense in chasing rabbit trails just yet. You need to fix the obvious issues first before you worry about what else is going on. As i stated before, a vacuum leak would cause a rough or surging idle, which would smooth out as rpm increased.

I highly doubt you have any sort of head problems, other than the stripped plug hole. You would have a much larger issue than this if it were the case, such as overheating, leaking or burning coolant for example.

As tifreak said, replace all 4 wires, and the remaining 3 plugs. Do not worry about your coil yet.
Also, the coil is the block attached to the strut tower, that the wires attach to. The plug boot is the part that is ripped.

[poohlikeshunny]

Good call...I went to fiddle with it today and now it doesn't smooth out when revving anymore. it idles a bit differently now that i put a new insert in and retightened the plug. I tried checking for any air coming from the cylinder again while the engine was on, and did not feel any pulsations...so I'm hoping that now it's just that the plug isn't firing...because I swapped the plug out with another one that was working, and it was fine. Based on what you said, does it sound like I may have fixed a vacuum leak problem and may only have the wire issue to solve?

And thanks for clearing up the whole coil/boot thing...I was getting confused as to what's what! I found some plugs on ebay for 97, so I'm going to try that and new plugs and hope for the best...

Thanks guys!