I know this is just a little off topic and I know this is a Third Gen site, but, I really need to get my driving car on the road so I can put together my Formula.

Anyway, anywhere between one and two cylinders are missing on my car making for a shakey ride when I was forced to limp it home and after it was, so called, repaired. The car seemed to be fine after it had been repaired, but as the temperature began to rise so did the shaking in the car. The car then would shake erratically as gas was applied causing it to gain and lose RPM's constantly; it never shook while coasting. The running of the engine is also accompanied by a fairly obvious tapping of metal against metal.

I forgot to mention, compression is fine across the boards.

I already know it is not the sparks plugs or wires due to the fact that it was the "repair" that was done. My father seems to think it could be a clogged catalytic converter backtracking and choking the engine. I have also heard rumors of Fourth Gen F-Bodies having push rods tear the head gasket.

Does anyone out there have any idea on how to help me?

 

coils can also be a big problem on them.

 

I think my brother and I tested that. To my knowledge we pulled the wires off of the cylinders we thought were dead to see if juice was going through. We had each wire arc off the intake manifold to check them, they all worked. However, I was in the car while he was doing this.

We kind of dismissed the thought of a coil because it really wouldn't explain why the care runs bad only sometimes. When the car sets for a hours after the block has cooled to the outside temperature it runs fine. However, when it rises over 160 degrees, it then starts to jump and do whatever it is it's doing.

Anything else in mind?

 

Buggered/dirty/clogged injectors?

 

i thought that could have been a possibility as well, but i remember putting a fuel injector cleaner through the system a couple of months ago; however, it still doesn't explain the sound from underneath the hood and the effect in given power ranges. I can find a range of RPM's where the car almost seems to run entirely smooth. though it is between 2000-2500 RPM's, it is a range where the car vibrates little if any. between 1000 and 2000 it vibrates violently and acceleration over 3000 results in heavy misses resulting in either a downshift or drops of over 500 RPM's at a time.

 

Does the metal to metal noise increase with rpms or does it stay the same? Is it a ticking or a clicking or a clanking? Lol...as absurd as that sounds, it might help to isolate what it could be. Get a mechanic's stethoscope if you can and try to listen where it's coming from.

 

the sound is a ticking or a tapping that is coming from the left side of the car if you are facing the block from the front of the car. the sound seems to originate from the around the area of the exhaust manifold.

 

forgot to mention it, the sound remains constant in volume and intensity as RPM's spin higher. Though it is somewhat hard to hear due to the volume of the engine at higher RPM's. we have only listened for it up to 3000 RPM's.

 

the problem is now fixed. irronically enough, somehow a plug wire slid off its place on the coil resulting in a misfired cylinder. whereas, i thought one sound was coming from underneath the hood two were actually present. one was the sound of the coil arcing off whatever it could and the other is most likely a worn rocker.

anyway, to finally rid myself of the noise coming from underneath of the hood i am going to change the oil in the car from the standard 5W30 to 10W30 per outside suggestions. if that doesn't clear up the noisy rocker i'll just have to use some STP engine treatment to see if it does the trick.

i thank anyone who posted in response to my initial thread. i guess each of you just put into prespective that the simplest explanation can be the right one.