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Durango engine trouble

99 Durango 5.9L has started behaving really weird. It starts up more or less fine (have to crank it more than usual), and will idle fine. When I floor it under load RPMs won't go over 2-3K, it starts coughing, and idles very roughly, then stalls (but sometimes will recover to smooth idle). I hooked up ODB scantool, and all sensors seem to be in working order. Whenever it starts stalling oxy sensor shows lean mix, and ignition advance fluctuates wildly between 10-25 degrees. No error codes. I even reset PCM by disconnecting battery - no joy.

I'm thinking ignition trouble... had all wires, distributor cap and coil replaced recently with Accel hi-perf components... could it have something to do with this???

Any suggestions welcome!!! Peter

Reply to
Peter
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Lean mixture, coughing, long crank time.... Check fuel pressure.

Glenn Beasley Chrysler Tech

Reply to
maxpower

Lean mixture, coughing, long crank time.... Check fuel pressure.

Glenn Beasley Chrysler Tech hmmm double post?

Reply to
maxpower

Reply to
tim bur

LOL! Yeah. How would you suggest a person go about "checking for air bubbles"?

Reply to
Dan C

You guys were all wrong ;)

It was the coil

No air bubbles in fuel as far as I can tell ;)) Fuel pump is fine, too.

Swapped back OEM coil, and it runs as new. I also measured primary resistance on both coils, about 22Ohms on both... dunno how can I measure secondary winding. My idle is just a tad rough now - which was the reason why I 'upgraded' to Accel in the first place.

Now, I wonder how on earth can faulty coil account for smooth idle at first, then spluttering/missing during acceleration, and finally settle down to very rough idle? My only guess would be cross-induction caused by higher voltage... there actually is TSB out for 99 Durango covering ignition wires cross-induction. When I swapped back the original coil voltage went down and cross-induction stoppped. If so, why did it run just fine with Accel for several months???

Peter

Reply to
Peter

Reply to
tim bur

A temperature sensitive connection (inside or outside) of the coil could cause this. There could be a problem with the Accel coils internal connections or one of it's external connections could have been corroded or loose. If it was an external connection, your swapping it with the origional would have cleaned that up and if it is internal, the coil is defective. When you increase RPM's of the engine, you increase the current flow which will heat up an improper or corroded connection and cause it to lose some or all of its ability to conduct and the coil output voltage will drop considerably if not fail completely and will stay this way until they cool down again.

Reply to
TBone

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