I searched a few threads but did not find anything that matched my issue. I have a 2004 Black OZ Rally. I have owned the car since new. It is my daily as it has been for the past 8 years. I dont beat on it or race it or anything like that. The only thing that is aftermatket on the entire car is the Kenwood CD player. I keep regular maintenance done on the car because I was the car to last me a long time. Currently the car has 144,XXX miles on it. I recently change the spark plugs and wires about 5k miles ago. I was heading into work yesterday and while sitting at a red light the car started bogging down a little bit. Now enough to shut it down but noticeable. I get to work and plug in my OBD 2 scanner. It reads misfire in cylinder #2. I think maybe the ecu is glitching because I have never had a problem with this car. So I clear the code and go into work.

I leave work about 6 hours later and start driving to Lowe's as part of my Honey-do list. On the way there the engine starts bogging down again and will not go above 2300 RPMs in 4th or 5th gear. Instead of driving to Lowe's I pull into the Autozone parking lot. I talk to the manager there and he says it may be a bad cat, but told me to switch the coil packs between #2 and #4 and if the engine throws a misfire on #4 then I would know that the coil pack is the culprit. I elect not to go to Lowe's and start driving home. On my way home the engine starts ticking. The ticking gets louder as the RPM's go up. I immediately stop in the closest parking lot I can find and the ticking goes away. I make it home and run some Seafoam through the engine in case it was a clogged injector causing the misfire. Even after the Seafoam the engine will start ticking every once in a while but goes away on its own. The enging is still throwing the Misfire in Cylinder #2 even after I switched the coil packs.

I am going to change the plugs when I get home from work today, but has anyone else ever experienced anything like this in the past? Any help is appreciated.

 

Switch the plugs & report back.

 

Well I am pretty sure I found the problem. I bought some NGK plugs today to replace the Autolite ones that are currently in the car and guess what I find in cylinder #2.



I cant explain what would cause this but it runs great once again now.

 

Oooo! I hope that missing tip isn't scratching the cylinder wall...

Wouldn't hurt to check.

 

That ground strap went somewhere. Hopefully out the exhaust valve without causing too much damage.

Should be a lesson learned. The only plug to use in these cars is the BKR5E11. There's no need for long life plugs when it takes all of about 5 minutes to change them out, including gapping. Stay away from the iridium/high performance/long life junk, it's just a gimmick. Standard $2 plugs, changed every 15-30k miles will give the best reliability and performance, and will allow the coils to operate in the proper secondary voltage range.

 

Well it ran great last night while idling after I changed the plug. This morning I start driving to work and the engine starts sputtering again and every once in a while starts tapping the engine again. Once again it gave a code of misfire in cylinder #2 even after I changed the plug. So now I am a dead end once again.

Green Bandit, how do I check to see if it scratched the cylinder wall?