Rough engine after VC gasket swap

[aram]

I swapped the valve covers on my 2000 lincoln LS V8 and changed the spark plugs. One of the cover gaskets was leaking onto the exhaust manifold causing smoke. I replaced the center seals as well (with the revised ones), but only got a small amount of oil on one of the old coil packs.. the rest appeared to be fine.

Now the car shakes at idle and feels like it is misfiring.. and occasionally will try to stall. I got a check engine light code 1309 which appears to be misfire detection disabled?! I figure maybe I disconnected the camshaft position sensor when I changed the gaskets and didn't notice it? I looked but can't find any information on where the camshaft position sensor(s) are located.. any help?

I cleared the engine light and it hasn't come back yet but I only drove it a few miles since clearing it.. anyone have any suggestions or know where the cam position sensor is located?

Thanks,

Aram
1991 RX7 2000 LS1 Engine - 11.4 @ 121 mph

 

[Drnaline]

Could be a bad or cracked plug. What about plug gap, didn't drop one on accident? Or when you plugged the coil wire harness back on, one didn't click?

 

[aram]

I think I'm going to take it back apart and take a look at all the plugs and make sure everything is securely plugged in. I put in bosch single platinums and the gap was .040 . I was in a bad mood and rushed it when I did it and that always leads to stupid mistakes. The code I got was really weird though.. it says it's not a misfire.. but that the "misfire detection" is disabled... which leads me to believe I unplugged something. but I don't remember unplugging more than the coil connectors and some evap stuff. I was thinking of just pulling all the plugs and replacing them with some standard copper ones anyway.

 

[2001LS8Sport]

The vacuum lines on this car are a pain to work with and the connectors are easily broken or cracked. I would investigate for a vacuum leak before I tore it apart again. It really sounds like that could be it.

 

[Midas78]

I cleared the engine light and it hasn't come back yet but I only drove it a few miles since clearing it.. anyone have any suggestions or know where the cam position sensor is located?

The engine light will clear just by having the battery unplugged for a period of time. In 2 days it will turn back on, if there is still a problem.

 

[Jim Henderson]

One other thing to check but maybe not as likely with COP ignition...

About half the time when I change plugs, or do extensive work requiring me to remove all the spark plugs, I wind up cross connecting a couple plug wires. This will give exactly the symptoms you describe. Checking and fixing is free so worth the effort.

Worth a check to make sure that you didn't plug in the wrong wire to the wrong COP. I am not sure how likely this would be since I assume the wires are short and near the appropriate COP, but I haven't played this game with my LS yet so I don't know how the COP wiring looks.

Good Luck, tell us what really happened when you know.

Jim Henderson

 

[aram]

Thanks for all the help/suggestions.

I looked around for loose/broken connections for a while and couldn't find any. Since I hate platinum plugs I went down to autozone and got the $1.29 autolite copper plugs and swapped those in. Fired it up and it idled fine (no more rough idle or near stalling) and the CEL hasn't come back on.

I originally had those cheap bosch single platinum plugs in the car and I probably should have used either copper or the OE spec platinums in the car. Since copper is cheaper and they work better the only downfall is that they need to be changed more often which isn't too big of a deal since I can do all 8 in about 30 minutes now.

 

[HyeLifeLS]

I had my engine idle kind of shaky and the car wouldn't accelerate well, I had no oil in any of the coils, but two coils came out to be bad. I replaced all of them and now the engine works great.

 

[2001LS8Sport]

One other thing to check but maybe not as likely with COP ignition...

About half the time when I change plugs, or do extensive work requiring me to remove all the spark plugs, I wind up cross connecting a couple plug wires. This will give exactly the symptoms you describe. Checking and fixing is free so worth the effort.

Worth a check to make sure that you didn't plug in the wrong wire to the wrong COP. I am not sure how likely this would be since I assume the wires are short and near the appropriate COP, but I haven't played this game with my LS yet so I don't know how the COP wiring looks.

Good Luck, tell us what really happened when you know.

Jim Henderson

Right Jim. Can't do that with these cars...no plug wires and it's impossible (well...Murphy says otherwise I guess) to mix up the coil wires.

 

[aram]

Right Jim. Can't do that with these cars...no plug wires and it's impossible (well...Murphy says otherwise I guess) to mix up the coil wires.

Right.. the way the connections are setup for the coils it would be pretty hard to switch them up.

Moral of my problem.. if you replace the plug use either a quality oem replacement platinum or if you don't mind changing the plugs more often a good copper one will work as well.

The plugs I originally used that did not work well were bosch single platinum plugs and were around $2 each.

 

[2001LS8Sport]

Ford actually has published literature against using those plugs. They cause problems just as you found out. When it comes to spark plugs, I don't understand why folks don't use the factory recommended plug! There isn't any horsepower to be gained by using another brand. The factory ones can last upwards of 100,000 miles...so service life and replacement cost shouldn't be a factor.