I haven't hard reset the PCM yet no. I suppose that could at least start to maybe narrow something now, maybe

The only other code that is started throwing was that bank to O2 sensor is reporting an air fuel mixture ratio imbalance. Ultimately not sure why only the one side is reading that and not the other side but that's why I started focusing more of my attention on half the motor to start off with.

I was also kind of thinking if maybe the throttle sensor is not reading correctly and that narrow band and maybe it's causing the plate to flutter? But that doesn't sound right either, this is a very confusing situation

I do figure that I probably should replace the O2 sensors but I'm trying to narrow it out cuz I really don't want to buy four sensors, since I know that's what needs to be done ultimately to make sure that everything is reading correctly. Although I suppose I could just replace the one and see if anything gets better and then replace the other ones a little bit later on

 

The O2 code may be telling..... Though, I would expect that your miss would go away at larger throttle openings, if it were an O2 sensor. (at large enough throttle openings, PCM ignores O2 sensors.... at least, in the past they did..... on the newer stuff? Not 100% sure....)

Might try simply disconnecting BOTH front O2 sensors, and go for a drive, see if the problem disappears.

 

I'll probably do the disconnect, tho the driver side is a pita to get to the connectors. They are literally almost dead smack on top of the center of the transmission The driver side ones are a lot easier to get to, albeit I gotta get a little fancy on how I route my arms through the frame/exhaust/transmission spaces

Here's another oddity to throw a large gorilla in the gears, Shortly after I posted the last update, I was leaving my one stop (I delivery snacks to gas stations) and motor was acting mostly correctly. Barley any stuttering let alone the kicking/bucking issues. I was able to accelerate from stop signs/lights without much issues. Altho, I could tell there wasn't full power, but no stuttering.

Go to 3 more stops and didn't have much problems. I was even able to get on the interstate and drive 65-70mph with cruise control on and it not act up. I stopped in the near by town and cranked back up and there was slight stutter again, but not as bad as before. But overall, it seemed to run smoother.

It's not fixed, but a long shot, I know. But just crazy how these things play out, making it that much more harder to diagnose what the problem is.

 

It would be interesting to watch the misfire counters while that was going on..... Is it random? Or is it specific cylinders that are consistently misfiring....

 

I just wanted to come back and report what I've found.

Pulled the O2's out found this situation:


Then I started getting lots of reports of misfires and the truck started acting even worse. So I decided to move some of the coil packs around to see if there was a change in engine performance. There was, but slightly. When I got home (did some of these swaps while on the road) I decided to install the NGK coil packs (I completely forgot to install these before. They were delivered and it was raining the next several days, so never got around to it, and forgot I hadn't installed them )
While I going to swap them out, I decided to check the plugs, and almost every plug on the drivers side looked like these:


And the passenger side had several damage to all the electrodes. So I took my old plugs, that these replaced, and put them back in so I at least was able to use all cylinders again for awhile. Still need to use the truck for work

Meanwhile, because I knew I had an exhaust leak from previous inspection, I had ordered some BBK's. I also had ordered some more spark plugs.

After pulling the drivers side header as it was the worst between the two, this is what I found:






I'm not an engineer, welder, certified mechanic, etc, but something tells me that is not what these are supposed to look like.
These headers are <2yrs old. They are SPELABS headers. They are trash! Supposedly they were stainless steel, I'm doubting it now, or they used the wrong SS grade.

So I'm guessing what happened is that the welds started cracking on the headers, this allowed oxygen to get sucked in and cause rusting inside the header. The fine particular rust started to coat and damage the O2's. Which in turn started throwing off the reporting values, plus the O2 being sucked in the cracks. These in turn made half the engine run lean, the other half run rich (I had both ODB codes reported). Then the lean side, drivers, burned out the spark plugs.

What a headache of a diagnosis path to get to the bottom of what's going on.

 

Ah, but, I would fully expect that you HAVE gotten to the root of the problem. Which is sometimes FAR more than half the battle.

My cheap chinesium stainless steel headers rusted out. There were sections several inches long, that were just gone..... There are various grades of SS, and the chinese fellers use the absolute worst grade, that they can still legally call 'stainless steel'.....

 

Yeah, well, I didn't think SPELABS was a BS company. I'll be taking some better pictures later in the week and sending them to their rep. and posting on a few socials. I'm not happy with their quality for sure.

I'm hoping this didn't cause more damage. But so far, seems ok