no offraoding. no rain, just drove to a friends house. when i got back in the truck it sputtered on a errand run. and back. leaving house to go somewhere else again it worked fine 98% of the way. than it started up again with the sputtering. it's kinda like when you decellerate in a manual. excess fuel burns off headers making a popping sound. its like that, but when accelerating. losing what feels like half my power. this only has been happening today, and has been hit miss all day.
Also. Idles perfectly fine.

Things ive tried , checked for looseness in vaccum lines. spark plugs. and wires. maf sensors. and leakes in intake after MAF.

 

Check all your vaccum lines.

 

can i get a list? i may have missed something. and a list would give me a direction and a check list.

 

I dont have a list put just go through the engine bay and check all the wires and make sure they are plugged in?

Are you throwing any trouble codes?

 

no check engine. no trouble codes. no leads or signs of problem other than the friggin sputtering. and it's possible i may have missed something but me, and 3 other people. have checked and looked over what we could.
but im not a professional. but i am better than average with my trucks mechanics.

 

how much power is the alternator putting out at idle?

did you try any dry-gas in the tank just in case?

 

Might be a fuel pump failing.

I'd throw a new fuel filter on it.

I'd also shut it off as soon as it starts doing it, then prime the fuel system by turning the key to Run for 3 seconds (hear the FP prime), then Off repeat 3X, then start it and drive it. If that makes it quit = fuel pump time (if replacing the filter doesn't help).

 

new fuel filter.
replaced it last month.

 

ok. did the fuel pump priming test. didn't make a difference. i went to vegas (Took a bus) But drove truck to meeting place. truck sputter alot on the way there. 3 days later. im back. driving home. only did it once. i have no idea whats going on and im actually stumped on this one.

how would i check the amp's on my altenator?

 

Take it off and Autozone will test it for free.

 

just put a multimeter across the battery at idle it should read around 13.8 volts.

and yes autozone can test it and do a load test.

 

it has to be taken off for them to run the tests? its somewhat new, and i dont really have a large amp draw.

 

no, it doesn't have to be taken off the engine

and at the same time they can also pull the stored codes if there are any ...

 

thats one of the most frusterating parts of all this. no error codes. otherwise i could be done with this crap.
BTW. ran down entire tank. and refilled with gas from another gas station. same problem.
also. ive noticed. the power loss is noticable. but the popping sound almost like backfiring is either too frequent to notice or doesn't happen at 5k rpm range. and is most common under hard accelerating. and near the 3k to 4k rpm ranges.

 

Pick up a mechanic's stethoscope (they're not expensive) and probe the injectors.Listen for one the doesn't 'click' like the others.
Over time , with an older engine ,any water in the fuel line after the filter will cause rust which can flake off and jam an injector.It won't allow the injector needle to come completely off its seat and starve the cylinder for fuel.What makes it hard to find is it won't generate a code.And it can also be intermittent.

 

sounds pretty close to what im experiencing. but have you ever seen a 97 2.3 engine? getting to those fuel injectors is a serious pain.

 

\\

 

Compression tested and leak tested all 4 cylinders today. 180Psi all 4 pistons. SOLID 180 Psi. leak test came up negative. (Naturally) i didnt expect a leak if all 4 pistons are in sync with each other. havent swapped plugs or wires yet. need some more money first. checked timing belt. lined up perfectly checked MAF sensor and the like to make sure they werent damaged. im losing options. im basicly down to vaccum lines. injectors. or plugs/wires. eleminating head gasket and timing was easy. but i need some other ways of testing vaccum lines in specific. cause i already got one idea of how to check injectors.

ANY HELP! PLEASE! lol.
I miss my baby. :(
An updaet for a more descriptive analysis of whats happening. idles perfectly fine. if you accelerate very slowly from 1k to 5.5k theres no popping sounds.

any kind of quick rpm climbs. like revving in nuetral. gets horrible popping sounds out the exhaust. same thing when trying to accelerate hard or fast.

Edit: when i was compression testing and leak testing i noticed the plugs are coverered lightly with a black soot like substance. and one half of each plug has a very minor amount of a type of light tan deposit building up on the plugs.

 

go somewhere super dark one night, pop the hood and look for spark 'leaking' somewhere. could be a bad wireset or coil pack. mines doing something similar and i found all these new wires i got from autozone are leaking spark all over the place.

 

you definitely have ignition break down. idk why your truck isnt setting codes for this... there has to be at least a pending code in your ecm. If there are no codes, you need to check the IM readyness status. If your ecm says that the IM status is incomplete, you have a keep alive memory failure or you need a new ecm. I doubt that is the case. You MUST change your plugs and wires(if you havent already done so) before reporting back!!! If that doesnt fix it, REPLACE the ignition coils... Go to a junk yard or something if you cant afford new ones... Hurry up already!

 

mine never threw a code either. stupid obd1! I wouldn't just go replacing the coils though. you can test them. Start with the looking for lights in the dark test-as i mentioned earlier- If you don't see anything test the resistance on the coils with a multimeter. Primary resistence should be less than 0.5 k ohms and secondary should be between 11.5k and 17.5k. Autozone.com has testing procedures if you don't have a manual.

 

i could see that with eec III or eec IV, but def. not eec V.

 

i couldn't tell you as i have no experience with it. Waiting for a code to help you find a problem on my truck is like pissing into the wind. haha.

 

lol, been there!

 

Thank you for the fresh replies. my thread kinda died and i kinda thought all hope would be lost. thank you ill test these things soon. :)