Flashing check engine light. Idles ROUGH!

[Godofwarmike]

ok so I bought my 1999 Plymouth Neon SOHC Automatic 125,638 miles back in feb and it needed a Camshaft Position Sensor cause the check engine light was on. replaced it and the light went out but the car has always sorta spuddered at idle no big deal.

Recently for the past month it has gotten really bad to where the whole car shakes really badly. when this happens the check engine flashes and sometimes the car smells strongly of gas.

got codes 43 for misfire. new spark plugs and wires and no difference.
ran few bottles of water remover and injector cleaner through tank no difference.

the 2nd cylinder right from the timing belt seems dead. unplugging injector and spark plug wire do no difference at idle.

car runs perfect no flaws while driving or speeding up.



ok so here is the odd part...
Car runs like *hit sometimes drive some city traffic and it runs perfect. shut it off and start it few seconds later and it runs rough check engine light flashes.

OR

Car runs like *hit go drive some city traffic pull over it runs great till it warms up enough that the rad fan kicks in then it runs rough and check engine light flashes.

if i slow down from highway driving to a stop it runs rough and check engine light flashes.




swapping injectors doesnt matter it still seems dead on #2 from timing belt. had ignition coil checked and it is good.


any ideas?

also my heat gauge rides on the white line above of cold and when the rad fans kick on it goes to just under half.

any ideas would help im really at a loss and dont really want to take it to a shop and pay a lot since im short on money lately.

[denisond3]

The next thing I would do is a compression test. An engine runs okay if it has compression, gets ignition (at the right moment) and gets a burnable mixture of fuel. With your symptoms coming and going, an electrical fault would seem most likely. This could be ignition, or an injector not firing.

If the compression on #2 is low (and it might only show up when the car was running badly) I would suspect there was a bad lifter; like a lifter with some grit in it; that was not letting one of the valves shut all the way.

If you use one of those mechanics stethoscopes, you might be able to hear an injector that wasnt firing - during the time it is running badly.

You can get refurbished injectors a reasonable prices - like $25- from ebay.
If you change injectors, I would turn on the fuel pump when the injector was out - to flush out anything that might be blocking the fuel rail at that point. Gasoline will spatter all over though - so have your fire extinguisher handy, in case you have a bad spark plug wire giving an arc.