misfiring problem - EXTREMELY DETAILED symptoms

[plymouthtalon]

I'm going to be as detailed as possible so someone can hopefully nail down the problem. I was driving today, when suddenly, every time I stepped on the gas, the car shook horribly, and the sound of the engine accelerating was like b-b-b-b-b-b-b (as it gained in pitch/ rpms). The engine sounded, felt, and accelerated like fuel was combusting in bursts, about five bursts per second, instead of a normal, smooth engine sound. When I stopped at a light, idle went down to about 200 rpms before quickly dying. The car started right away, but idle was still shaky (although a little higher) before I gave it gas. The road was a slight uphill and the car could barely start going (about 5 secs. to get to 15 mph and so on). Few more seconds and the CEL came on. After coming down to idle at another redlight for a split second, I accelerated when it turned green and the problem was gone, completely. Whole thing only happened for about 3-4 minutes. CEL stayed on until I got home and plugged in to check the code. Diagnostic said there was a #1 cylinder misfire. Since the problem was gone and I was busy tonight, I haven't checked any parts for problems yet.

I just put in Denso Iridium plugs about 5 months ago; I bought the car about 8 months ago and haven't changed the plug wires. I do have a microscopic crack in the valve cover and have a little oil in the spark plug well but not enough to touch the plug boots.

I do plan to swap out the plug wires first, but I hope someone may be able to pinpoint the problem with all this information. I thought a bad plug wire might cause the problem, but I didn't think it would just go away after 3 mins. This same problem happened about 500 miles ago, again for just a couple minutes. If the plug wires don't turn out to be the cause, I suspect a clogged injector maybe?

 

[TalonRacer18]

Bad injectors, plugs fouled?, wires touching eachother or bad, coil going bad, alternator going bad?

 

[nhsean69]

I had this problem with my 95 GST when i switched to Iridiums and didnt replace the stock wires (which were new about 2 months before i got the plugs in). Turned out 2 of my wires were burnt through and arcing out to the block. Change your wires and see what happens.