About two weeks ago, my car started running like absolute crap. it would randomly strip the CES light and run like poo.

Last night, I decided to take it to my buddies house to if changing the O2 sensor would help any. I had changed it about 20 months ago when I first bought the car, but I figured maybe it could've been damaged in that time having been through a knocking engine and all.

When I pulled the old sensor out, it didn't look 'right'. One side of the sensor was a light brown, almost rust color and the other side was whitish with a bit a crusty buildup around where it seals to the exhaust header. I installed the new one, reset the ECM and took the car out for a test drive.

Now it runs like absolute crap. During the ECM relearn drive, it was EXTREMELY hesitant under part throttle, and the engine was running in a manner to the cylinders being fired in a random order. It even backfired through the intake. Seems hesitant and powerless off idle, and throws a code 44 EVERY TIME within 5 minutes of starting the car after it warms up. Even pulling over and restarting the engine will get you about 30 - 60 seconds before it comes back on. Before the CEL comes on, it holds idle at around 750 but feels rough like It's randomly misfiring. as soon as the CEL comes on, the idle drops to 500RPM and the engine runs completely unstable like it wants to stall. I have the feather the gas at stops

So about an hour ago I was poking around under the hood to see if I could find anything awry, when I found a pretty serious problem. The spark plug wires, especially on the passenger side were completely roasted by the stupid AIR tubes on the headers (hacksaw anyone?). One of the wires was so bad the insulation was dried and cracked away, and the inner material was split right down to the core of the wire. I unplugged this wire and started the engine. There was, surprisingly still spark at the boot of the wire, and the engine misfire seemed a bit worse but not as bad of a degradation as I would expect for the complete loss of a cylinder, compared to the condition it was already running in.

I then plugged this wire back up and started the engine and with all the lights turned off poked my head under the hood and watched it idle. I could see the spark from at least 2 of the wires jumping to the exhaust headers (AIR tubes).

I hooked a laptop up to the diagnostic port and took some readings. at idle, the MAF was measuring around 6.xx g/s, but the O2 seemed a bit erratic. It would cycle from 800mv all the way down to 100 - 200mv.

Do you guys think replacing these wires will solve my problem or am I looking at something more serious here?

 

i would start off with replacing your wires, see what happens than diag from there.