3SFE Missing under acceleration

[Montanahelp]

My friend has an 88 3SFE automatic with 181,000 miles on it. It has started missing under acceleration. It starts and idles fine and will cruise at highway speeds with no problem, but during the acceleration it misses and hesitates bad. It doesn't matter if the engine is cold or hot.

In the past year it has had timing belt, water pump, distributor, wires, plugs all replaced. It ran fine for months with all these parts replaced before this engine missing problem started. I don't know if when the repair shop he uses put in a rebuilt distributor if they also changed the coil?


I have had a Camry with a similiar problem and replacing the plug wires cured it.

Any ideas? Fuel filter, injector cleaner, coil???????????

[boi_si]

a few guys here and me has similar issues. im might try out wiccanferret's idea and see if it works. im guessing its a distributor problem. if its not a genuine toyota distributor, it prob wont work well.

[Montanahelp]

What is wiccanferret's idea?

[wiccanferret]

First and foremost, if you're dealing with hesitation issues and don't know when your fuel filter has been changed last, you should probably change your fuel filter. How about your air filter?

My idea was just to put diaelectric grease on the posts connecting the distributor to the ignition coil, something that a mechanic should've done anyway.

[Mike Gerber]

Missing under load is usually an ignition system problem. If the other ignition components are relatively new, I would check out the coil. To do this you will need a digital volt/ohmeter and the specs from any manual. There is a generation 2 Toyota factory service manual stickied at the top of the General Camry Discussion forum that is available for free downloading. I would also pull the plug wires off the plugs and look down in to the well, looking for any evidence of oil down in the wells. Oil down there can eat the plug wires in short time causing them to arc to the walls of the plug wells.

Mike

[ChevelleSSLS6]

I have a similar problem shown here...
http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/t206905.html
except my issue is light throttle/off throttle situations, and idle is unsteady around 1300-1500rpm, and it won't rev past 4500rpm in gear.

I did the dielectric grease, the terminals weren't highlighted well, but after pulling off that dust shield (just pulls straight out) you'll know where to put the grease.