I have a mysterious electrical problem with my 96 sohc that no one can seem to figure out. I was driving down the road when my car suddenly died. The first shop I took it to thought the pcm was bad. So, they replaced it and flashed it and my car still did not respond. The second shop I took it to tried replacing a number of different sensors with no luck. They told me that it was getting signal to the spark plugs and injectors on two cylinders but not the other two. It was at both shops for two weeks and no one can make any head way. I'm not sure what I should do. It has always been a good solid running car with no major issues. I've done a lot of work to keep it that way. Someone please help me.

 

ok if its getting a signal to 2 of the 4 cylinders that means the pcm is good... if one bank goes out so does the other if it was the pcm since they are a common power sorce.... I would trace the wires from the coil pack to the pcm... or if you dont want to go threw all that cut the wire about 6 inches off the pcm and solder in a new wire to the coil pack... this happens to a few people and its allways the wire itself... like its cracked or broken or shorting out...

 

my car did the exact same thing.. it was the plug to the coilpack. kept on comeing out and it would never start again till hour or 2 later.Also i had some bare wires underneath the car that kept on blowing the fuel pump fuse.no i just taped it on and never hapend again and taped up the bare wires...works for now...u might have the same problem.

 

Ok, so i took all the electrical tape and such off the wires from the coil pack to the pcm. Visually I didn't see anything wrong with the wires. So, I used a multimeter to check for continuity. Two of the wires tested good. The other one, a dk grn/orange wire showed continuity to 11 different wires in the connector for the pcm. I know it gets signal to some of the other wires through sensors and such, but this doesn't seem right. I'm still not sure what to do. I don't know if I should keep on taking more electrical tape off of the wiring harness or if that is a waste of time. When I checked the spark coming out of the coil pack, I got a wierd result. Cylinders 2 and 3 worked fine. But, 1 and 4 would spark once and that's it. You got any ideas?

 

check the auto shut down relay. the same thing happen to me and i had to rewire the relay outside the relay box and it never happen to me again. let me know if u know if you want to try this and i tell u how to do it.

 

Well a couple of months ago, my check engine light came on. My car ran alright, but it gave me a fuel related code(I can't remember the specifics). I replaced both the fuel pump relay and the shut down relay and the light went out. So both those relays are new. And I would think, if that was the problem, then it wouldn't get spark to any of the cylinders and not just two. But at this point, I'm willing to try just about anything. If you tell me how to do that I'll give it a shot.

 

So, I have now taken apart most of the dash so I could check the wiring behind it. I don't see any damage to any of the wires. I thought the problem might be in the wiring in between the firewall and the fuse box, but everything looks good. I could really use some help, cuz I'm tiredof drivin around in my old beater truck. Anyone have ony other ideas?

 

If you put a test light on the two outer wires on the coil pack (blue/tan, black/gray). Put one side of the light on one of the wires, then the other side on the positive (+) battery cable. Have someone turn it over, and the light should intermittently blink. If not, you have the same problem I have with my neon, and have had for the past 1.5 years. Cant get it running, I have replaced everything imaginable. Please let me know if you find the problem. Thanks!