I drove my venge to friends house and it ran fine. I left it running and went inside to get him.When I came back out it idled weird and smelled like it was flooding. Since it was a cold morning I thought maybe it was the choke because it hadn't time to warm up since he lives less than a half mile from my house. I tried to pull out and it popped , sputtered, and went on. When I got to the end of the road and tried to pull out it went dead and wouldn't start. It finally started and limped home. I checked the plug wires and plugs which both are fairly new but you never know. It didn't help so I was putting a distributor off my 96 and i managed to jam the shaft and it tore the ears off the distributor when I tried to start it. So i put the rotor button and cap on the 95 distributor. No good. I also tried Heet. Still no good. I kind of surges and does it really bad in od. It gets bad enough sometimes that it seems to be running on one cylinder. It will run bad, then good, then bad , then good. Its a 95 ES 2.5. Any help is appreciated because i am about ready to give up.

 

It could be the CPS. That's the sensor that tells the computer when cylinder one is TDC, allowing for fuel and spark timing.
The crank position sensor (in the distributor) tells when to spark a plug and which plug and it could be that too. When was the last time you checked your spark plugs, both gap and it's health? How about the wires, when were they last changed?
Does this only happen when cold or also when it's been warmed up?
Another thought is your o2 sensors. If they are bad, your car will run inherently rich as that's the ECU's backup fuel map...better safe than sorry.

Check your plugs first, that should have been the first thing checked (granted, you most likely didn't have a plug socket, lol). This will show if you are running rich or lean in any cylinder (this may or may not show bad timing on the either of the sensors part, but it is a good lead), or just have bad plugs, or even bad wires. Does your car smell rich? Always try the simple things first, because they are the things that break first, lol.

There's quite a bit more, but that's a start.
The CPS, the CPS in the distributor, plugs, wires, cap.
I need more info though and by checking the plugs and wires can help me a bit more.
Let me know though bud.

 

I checked the plugs the day before yesterday but it didn't help because of how the car surges it runs bad but by the time i pull in the driveway it clears up or at least it has every time so far. One of the plugs did look suspicious it was the (can't remember the cylinder numbers) one in the middle on the back side of the motor. But it didn't look that bad and with the car dropping that many cylinders and then running good I didn't figure that one plug wouldn't be the culprit.The wires looked fine and are not broke, cracked, or burnt.I replaced the plugs and wires probally 5000 miles ago if that long. That's when the valve cover gasket on the back sideblew out so I replaced those and the plugs, wires, and also fixed a axle leak on the trans I didn't know I had until I put it on the lift. I will check them again and get back to you on that since it ran really bad last night. By the way it seems to get worse when I drive it a long distance. Yesterday it ran fine until I drove 46 miles to my girlfriend's house. It got within a half mile from her house and missed so bad i barely limped to her house i pulled in the driveway and put it in park and it barely missed then cleared up. Same thing happened on the way home. I misses through out driving but it seems to get worse after a long time of driving. Especially if its got a load on it like if it's in OD and you try to accelerate. If you turn OD off it barely misses. That's all I can tell you for now. Thanks again for helping.

 

Maybe try the ASD relay, it's in the sticky section. There's only a few hardware items that can affect the spark. I've covered a few of them already. The relays and PCM can cause this issue too. Everything, but the distributor will cost less to replace than the PCM though, so start small.
Another consideration are the injectors, filter, pump fitler being clogged. Those may be an easy fix with some injector cleaner or Seafoam type stuff. Do you run your gas tank really, really, really close to empty? If so, chances are good that there's a clog too. We have to start somewhere though, so try the relay next. As a matter of fact just change all three relays with Radio Shack 12v relays and see where that takes you. They aren't expensive at all either, maybe $2-$5 each.

 

Mine had 4 relays but i changed them and it still barely missed. I drove the whole 100 yards to the stop sign and when I pulled out it ran good for about 5 foot and then it sputtered, backfired and died. By the way these cars are heavy when you got to push up a hill while turning back onto the backroad. Anyways I got it to start and it ran fine the 100 yards home and when i pulled in the driveway and got it parked it started barely running so I cut it off and then my stepdad had to go to work so I moved it and barely got it back up 5 foot. My question is could it be the crank positioning sensor because it has to be firing at the wrong time to backfire. So that would mean the timing is off. And i have run my gastank nearly empty before but it has almost a half tank. And when it misses it smells really rich. I am going to try the cps and i will let youknow how it goes down.

 

Well the cps or as the book said ckp didn't work still misses. I'm about ready to push it in front of a train and let insurance cover the rest. After about 2 weeks and I don't even know how much moneyyou would have thought I would have fixed it by now. Any other ideas? The bad part is is that it is probally something simple like a intake sensor or the egr but I don't know. I guess it's probally up to $300-$400 now since I bought that distributor and all these sensors. Do you think it could be something in the computer because its a 95 but we couldn't get the key dance to work and I have done it before many times and we couldn't get a scanner to read off the codes either it always said read fail. The scanner is an Actron and the manual i have said it would work but it wouldn't so maybe there is something causing it to not read and that's why it's missing. That's all I know for now maybe you will have an idea. Thanx for all your help once again.

 

Hey Silver thanks for all your help but I finally found it. It was the cpu the whole time i'm happy in a way but also frustrated in a way that this whole time it was as simple as a cpu. So now we know how toidentifya problem in case of someone else having it. Thanks again.

 

Good deal. I'm glad you found it.
The thing about it being the PCU, is that it's the last step in the chain before the motor gets it's changes due to the sensor's info. So, if the sensors are off or just aren't working and you already bought the PCU, it would still be the same, just like how it was for you (but reversed, lol).
Troubleshooting can be a 50/50 chance because it can start at either side of the troubleshooting line. I just went down the common issue side of the line and your issue was the not-so-common side, lol. The good thing was that you were following the right path.