Hi, I was driving my 2003 Lancer ES back home tonight, and right when I went to get off the freeway, my exhaust note started to sound like an STi, exactly... I thought to myself something must really be wrong. I drove very conservatively for another 3 miles or so until I got home, the car ran fine, it just didn't get up to speed as fast.

When I popped my hood at my house.. I immediately heard a "Clicking" noise that repeated and then saw one of my spark plug wires had popped out of it's hole. The plug wire in cylinder 1.

What I want to know is if my engine could have any damage from the compressed fuel mixture in cylinder 1 not being ignited for 3 miles or so of driving. I'm assuming the only damage could of been to my catalytic converter, which is already dead so it doesn't matter.

There is no possibility of damage to cylinder 1 is there? The wire popped up about 3 inches but did not completely come out of it's hole.

 

I have driven roughly the same distance with a shot coil pack on cylinder 2 and it sounded just as you described. It runs just fine now and I have had my cylinder head off since then everything looks fine. I rebuilt it because I wanted new gaskets and there were some rough looking stem seals. But I highly dought there was damage done to your motor