Jeven Bell

I recently detailed the engine bay. Few days later car seems to randomly have an occasional minute or two of misfiring, and then goes away. Started becoming more occurring, but maybe only 1-2 cylinder intermittently. Didn’t even pop a CEL. So I pull the spark plugs out and they are trash.
Replace them, and immediately have massive misfiring, felt like 2-4 cylinders misfiring. And not consistently. Would go from like 1-2, to 2-4. Rough and then not as rough. CEL pops and gives me 3 coil pack codes, and a camshaft position sensor retard (bank 1 and bank 2).
So I start tracing the misfires, and they’re all on 2, 6, 8, and occasionally 4. All on the passenger side. But I go ahead and replace all the coils and NADA. Replace cam sensor on that bank, NOTHING. Still crazy misfires. I started moving some injectors around and think I got some of them over to the other bank but it’s so hard to tell with the engine running the way it is.
Any ideas outside of injectors coil packs and spark plugs?
Edit (I have noticed that the intake manifold on the passenger side is disgustingly filthy. When I bought the car it had the Ford performance manifold installed. The drivers side is completely dry and fine. It originally had a tiny fuel injector leak on that side but I had fixed it while swapping around injectors. But not enough of a leak to filth up that whole side of the manifold)

houtex

Welcome to the forums!

Quote:

CEL pops and gives me 3 coil pack codes, and a camshaft position sensor retard (bank 1 and bank 2).

Ok, so that's indicating to me that a wiring problem, possibly caused by the detailing in some way (bumped something, water got in it) has occurred. Although bank one and two both popping is an odd problem given the misfires on one side, it still points more to a wiring issue than anything else. So the thing to do is check your wiring at the ECU (big silver box on the right side of the engine bay) to be sure all connectors are tight and good, maybe pop them loose and inspect them. I'd also check all the wiring all over the engine. Grounds, connectors, the wiring itself... you may have a short, you may have liquid intrusion, you may have a bad connector... bad ECU... all kinds of things are possible here, to be honest.

The manifold part you post is... interesting. Makes me wonder about the condition of the manifold and/or the intake manifold gaskets...

At the end of it, though, this may require a scan tool and/or a smoker to properly solve. Which means, ostensibly, you're taking it somewhere that can properly do those things. The other thing you can do is acquire the wiring diagram of your car, complete with locations of connectors and such, and then multimeter all the ends from end to end and see if there's a break/short somewhere... which is where the proper tools/diagnosis might save your sanity. You can wind up using a parts cannon to no avail on this one.

Hope that helps. If you have any more info, don't hesitate. Good luck!

Bert

yep I was suspecting a physical wiring issue also, especially since this all started after detailing the engine bay, something flopping around or moisture moving around

regarding the gunk in the manifold -- could be oil from the exhaust gas recirculation system; assume you do not have an oil trap (catch can) in the line; but usually that is mostly on the driver side; I have a catch can on mine and it is on the driver side because that's where they say all the gunk comes from (not sure why, might have to do with the direction of rotation of the engine????)

gp1200x

On the 5.4/5.8L GT500s most of the oil is collected on the passenger side. I would be surprised if it was different on the 5.0 or smaller engines.

houtex

https://www.americanmuscle.com/catch...g-oil-out.html

All you guys need to know about catch cans is here. There's a primary and a secondary PCV system. That's why the drivers vs. passenger. And you can see the primary is on the 4.6 is on the drivers, where the 5.0 is on the passenger, for a single catch system. Similar engines, different design of the PCV by Ford, for whatever reason. Technically, you should have both, but it's not needed as much unless you have a supercharger.

So there y'all go. That's why the disparity. Hope that helps!

Bert

thanks houtex; I remember from when I got my catch can, that it was definitely recommended to put it on the driver's side, they are (pretty much) only sold for the driver side for the 4.6; but I never questioned it