CEL, rough idle, sounds like I'm driving an old VW bus

Herb · Post by **Herb** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 11:50 am

OK, my 03 GT is behaving oddly and I'm not entirely sure what's going on. The engine is shuddering and sputtering like an old VW bus if the RPMs are under 3K.Any ideas as to what might be the problem?

bull77 · Post by **bull77** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 12:06 pm

i've only had this happen after I installed the sri --- feels like its going to stall. Have you already disconnected the neg. term for 10mins? That's what fixed mine..

kunkstyle · Post by **kunkstyle** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 12:11 pm

Fuel pump? What's the code for the CEL?

Herb · Post by **Herb** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 12:12 pm

No, I haven't cleared the memory. I've had my CAI installed for over a year now and haven't made any new mechanical related mods since then as well.This seemed to have cropped up by surprise. I thought I should try getting the code read before I clear the memory though.

Herb · Post by **Herb** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 10:27 am

Well I decided to try to reset the computer by disconnecting the battery. The car ran fine for about 5 min before the problem started up again.Basically in gears 1-3 with RPMs under 3000 it feels very rough. Haven't triggered the CEL again yet so I guess it can't be read.It almost feels like I'm lugging the engine to a degree.I'm wondering if a spark plug isn't firing well since I think I'm noticing some backfiring. When I washed my engine bay last week, I did pour a bit of water on the sparkplug cover as displayed below. Could water in this area be causing problems?Or bad fuel? I filled up last week too. I'm trying to think of some things I may have done recently that might explain this

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matty77 · Post by **matty77** » Mon Aug 02, 2010 2:30 am

I am having the same problem, did you figure it out

Herb · Post by **Herb** » Mon Aug 02, 2010 2:44 am

Ended up that I really did get water in where the spark plugs were.I ended up replacing all my spark plugs and didn't run into any problems until several months later where cylinder 2-3 were misfiring. I ended up pulling my Unichip and things were fine after that. I did contact Unichip support and they said it could be the coil packs. I recently replaced those coil packs but have yet to reinstall the Unichip.Here's a photo of the spark plugs after I pulled them out:As you can see that #1 and #4 obviously were submerged in water to a degree.

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CEL, rough idle, sounds like I'm driving an old VW bus

CEL, rough idle, sounds like I'm driving an old VW bus

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