I have a 97 Dodge dakota. With codes coming up of missfires on 1 3 5 cylinders. My nephew helped put a pickup coil and new rotor button on it when we turned I over the rotor button broke could this have knock the timing off. It will crank and run but loses power and backfires.I have replaced fuel pump, crank sensor ignition coil,throttle positioning sensor,and the computer.

 

Timing is controlled completely by the PCM, using the crank sensor. The sensor in the distributor, is the cam position sensor, and it simply tells the PCM which injector is up next.

Also, these trucks REALLY don't like the aftermarket sensors, in critical locations. Crank, and Cam sensors are right at the top of that list.

Getting any codes? If not, time to do a compression test.

 

Yes, I agree with Rich. The dakotas are extremely sensitive to the crank and cam sensor. I had misfires on #1,3,5. I changed the crank sensor but it didn't solve the problem so I started changing other sensors to try and make a difference but no change. After watching live data I noticed the timing jumping around from like 17° and it would just shoot up to 26°. Finally after being very frustrated I decided to start over again from the beginning and started with that darn crank sensor which is the hardest one to change on this vehicle. After doing the sensor the second time I guess I got a good one? Problem was then resolved. 1,3 and 5 misfires all the time and mine was due to a new defective crank.