1990 Camry Misses - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

WhiteWolf0890 · 08-05-2009, 11:50 PM

Hello everyone I have a 1990 toyota camry with 91000 original miles that I have had for about 1 year with no problems till now. About a week ago I was driving along and got to a stop sign and noticed the engine missing, which it had never done before. At that time it was a slight miss ive continued to drive it with the thought of getting some injector cleaner on payday (tomorrow). Well due to my procrastination it has only gotten worse. Now i have trouble starting it and when it does run it has a horrible miss almost as if it is running on only two cylinders. If the engine is running and I pull the plug wires off cylinders 1,2 it seems to run just as bad upon replacing them and removing 3,4 it gets worse and almost dies. So it would seem to me that it is cylinders 1,2 the right two as viewed from the front of the car. Currently the car is hardly driveable and i need to drive it 35 miles too work tomorrow and friday so im hoping i do no further damage, and am still planning on buying some injector cleaner. Im doubting its plugs and wires because I just replaced them 10,000 miles ago but upon talking to the previous owner i have found out the distributor has been replaced twice on this car so I dont know if maybe there was an issue in 1990 with these engines causing the distributor to go bad or what. But any information anyone has would be great so I can get my problem fixed. p.s. at idle it misses so bad it almost dies and dims the lights and i often have trouble starting it where ill let it crank for 2-3 secs. stop and repeat four to five times and then the engine will barely start almost like it cant get fuel and it will take a few secs. to speed up which is what is making me think it may be a clogged injector.

Tom 2000 · 08-06-2009, 12:24 AM

When I had my 4-cyl 1988 Camry, I had igntion system problems as well.

A lot of people had problems with their coil at one time or another with their 3S-FE engine. The coil is integral to the distributor. You can remove it from the distributor fairly easily if you remove the distributor from the engine.

The car would start fine, but start to miss really bad as it was warming up. After it warmed up, it was fine again. For some people, their car would miss really bad on rainy days. After it wamed up, it would run fine.

I had another incidence where I installed crappy autolite wires, which went bad after a couple of years. The symptoms I had were like what you described on your post. I replaced them wtih Toyota OEM replacements wire/cap set and it was fine again.

I also had to replace the distributor on this car as well, because of an oil leak. There is a rubber O-ring that goes on the base of the distrutor where it slides into the cylinder head. That can leak too after so many years, but the oil was leaking through my distributor as the internal seal inside the distributor failed.

I simply bought a used distributor with a good seal to fix that problem as I wasn't planning on keeping the car for many years. It was fine when I sold it couple of years later.

WhiteWolf0890 · 08-06-2009, 01:09 AM

I'll have to check into that seal in the distributor also i too believe i bought cheap wires not sure of the brand just know i wanted bosch but couldnt really afford it im gonna look around and see what kinda deals i can find i know i can get a distributor from autozone for about $165 and a cap with wireset for $55 but to me it just seems like its not getting fuel because of the way it hesitates to start and the fuel pump was just replaced 5000 miles ago and when i did that i had the tank cleaned so i dont think I sucked up any debri but i suppose I could always have a bad fuel injector (i hope not).

Mike Gerber · 08-06-2009, 08:31 AM

Most missfires under load are from the basic items like plugs and wires. A simple test you can do for free to check the plugs, is switch the plugs between cylinders 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. Then pull the plug wires off 1 and a time like you did before and see if the miss has moved from cylinders 1 adn 2 to 3 and 4. If it has you know the plugs are your problem. If not, I would suspect the cheap aftermarket plug wires you put on. It would be rare, but not impossible, to have 2 fuel injectors go bad at the same time.

Mike

white90dx · 08-06-2009, 12:57 PM

No need to replace the whole distributor... just do the coil if you track it down to that.

If you didn't use OEM wires, they are likely part of the problem. As painful as it is, they are by far the best (and worth the money, really - they last 2-3x as long for 1.5x the money).

My guess is that the ignition coil is going bad and it is exposing a slight weakness elsewhere in the ignition system.

-Charlie

PS. Avoid Bosch spark plugs like the plague. If you are short on cash, get the standard copper NGKs or Denso's. I run the NKG copper plugs in both my WRX (at 300+hp) and my 3s-gte Camry (280-300hp) with great results. You will need to replace them every 10-15k miles - but at $1.99/plug its cheap and easy.