i was extra nice to the car this morning... i was on my back greasing the suspension bushins up real good... then my authority short shifter came in... and the damn car starts misfiring.

i was hoping it wouldn't be the coil (i bought a new one and it's on order anyway), so i finally switched the position of the codes and the car ran smoothly for a little bit after clearing out the code but it came back. i was hoping it would say cylinder 2 instead of 4 but nope... still cylinder 4 and now i got a new code to add to the list: P0204 which is "injector circuit open cylinder 4".

so it's not the coil. i guess i can get my $104 back. i have no clue what this injector circuit business is all about, either. faulty injector? clogged injector? usually i run the injector cleaner close to oil change time but i HAVE been slacking.

i'm ready to either tear the fuel rail off and pull out the injector or simply drive the car into a wall. i am not sure what would be more satisfying right about now.

also... do you guys know the cylinder numbering from left (where the oil cap is) to right? i am ASSUMING it's 1, 2, 3, 4... but i am not %100 on that since i was hoping to get my answer to that question when the coil threw a different code--but the coil isn't the problem so that didn't help, haha. i want to know this for sure before i tear off the fuel rail. not like i couldn't just clean all the injectors when i had the rail off though.

edit: how close is our motor to the 4G63? that motor is 1, 2, 3, 4 starting from the cylinder closest to the timing belt--which is how i am thinking ours are numbered.

reference: https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/at...4&d=1100234858

 

okay, one more update...

i just said "screw it" and took the fuel rail off the car and took out what i believed to be the cylinder 4 injector. it was pretty dirty and nasty so i cleaned that thing up real good--it looks like a brand new part now.

i put it back in the car and drove it for about as long as i drove it before to try to duplicate the conditions and there wasn't a single hiccup, jerk... nothing. just a nice smooth running engine.

i checked for codes and there were none. no pending codes, either. i think i may have gotten it. the injector may just have gotten clogged because i stopped using the cleaner... i'm not sure if that's the case or not or if it may have just become clogged because of junk in gas i'd gotten recently or stuff that got stirred up at the bottom of the tank.

either way it looks like i got the car running good again. i am very happy. may day just may be ending okay since on the test run the second time i bought a $1 scratch ticket and won $2. woo woo! you never win on $1 tickets in MA.

also i'd like to add that the authority shifter ROCKS. that with the evo IX shift knob... it's just perfect. i have the kartboy bushings in the linkage under the hood, and in the shifter base--there is ZERO play in the shifter. when you shift it you're going into gear and that's it. i LOVE it.

 

I've always heard that injectors hardly ever go bad or get clogged. Also heard that using a 9V battery will open and close the injector to allow cleaner to be passed through while not attached to the rail/motor. Glad that it's better though...

 

at first it was only a misfire code... but the more it did it i guess the worse it got... then i got the injector code.

the gap WAS way off on that cylinder while it was dead on with the rest.. it looks like i pulled a stupid and gapped three of four plugs, haha. i pulled every plug and cleaned and re-gapped them all as well. no real issues there, the plugs probably don't even have 5,000 miles on them yet (NGK V-powers).

the WAPCE had loads of injector issues with her old '94 sable so i'm open to just about anything. murphy's law, you know?

everything seems good now, i will probably do more driving tomorrow to make sure things are okay. i bought some new wires for kicks and giggles seeing as how i replaced one a few months ago since it was damaged i might as well replace the other one so i bought a whole set (a whole two! ).