all plugs looked good to me as far as ground straps, porcelain, and heat discoloration go, so it's tuned correctly for in town driving.

 

Rotor button looked chewed up a bit a well. Real rough and black on the end like I tried to sharpen it on concrete. Cap had a uniform ring on all contact points.

 

I'm curious to see what you find the problem to be.

Mine does similar things, but it seems that the longer the engine has been running, the worse it gets. If I drive for an hour and a half, it gets real bad. The more throttle I give it the worse it bogs down, until it gets to a point where the engine bucks. I really like my truck, but I'm HATING all of the electronic crap on it. I have an Auto Enginuity scanner for it to hook to the laptop, but some of the readings I have no idea what they should read. I miss having a simple tranny with a carbureted engine! Issues are easier for me to diagnose and they have fewer complicated parts that are cheaper to replace.

I'll keep checking back to see what happens here.

 

Does your cat get HOT while driving? Sounds like it may be on its way out.

 

No repeat of the problem since I replaced the plugs, cap and rotor, and cleaned up the coil.

I'm about to declare it solved, but if I do that, it'll immediately start happening again.

 

Ron, were their any specific codes or values on your scanner you needed to know about? I might be able to help a bit from what I've read up on.

 

Just want to add a minor addendum to this thread.

The problem returned this week. Found out that the coil plug wire was so loose on the coil it was actually making intermittent contact and dropping spark on occasion. The clip inside the boot had zero clamping force, it was probably bouncing off the coil on rough roads.

 

Ah, I have done many tuneups and found that I "thought" the plug boot was securely on the plug. But they were just laying there. Sometimes it happens when you put TOO much grease on there.

I get the accel truck kits. But i think i am going to get magnecor wires and pulstar plugs on my next tuneup.

MSD boxes make cap/rotor/plug changes necessary about every YEAR. You go through them 3X as fast since you get 3X the spark.

 

Glad it was an easy fix.

 

That's good news.
I changed my plugs a while back and had one plug wire that didn't want to clip on so I stole a wire off an old Buick that was in the yard until I got new wires.