Not sure if this is really where this belongs, but I didn't find a forum that seemed like a better fit.

I just bought a '00 F150, 5.4L, and it was sold "as is - has motor problems". Well, it did, and I guess still does. Replaced several badly, bad parts. Still have a misfire, though, which gets worse in OD. I'd like to find out which cylinder I need to look at. I think, since the plugs were so worn (worst was 0.098" gap!) that one or more coils may have been hurt.

So, I have an Innova 3140D. Says it's supposed to read all the different modes. But, when I look at the screen "Vehicle Info" and select "Available modules", it only lists #10. I can go to one screen and see test $53 listed, and it has #1-8 for viewing, but I am afraid I may not be seeing what I think I should be seeing. There isn't much info in the manual, so I'm not sure if I'm not looking in the right place or if the scanner isn't really capable of what I want to do, or if the truck isn't putting out the data it's supposed to.

Dave

 

Watched the Mode 6 video in another thread. I'd watched it before, but I guess missed some of the stuff on screen. It looks like the $10 is what I want to watch, then test $53, so I guess I'm on the right track. I wonder if the engine was misfiring so much that it didn't register? I don't really get that, but now that I know that I was looking in the right spot, I'll watch it more tomorrow when I go to work.

 

Okay, so I have been using this thing since it arrived and it's helped, I think.

Initially, it showed that the S1B1 O2 sensor was not providing meaningful feedback, so I replaced that. Sensible voltages showed up.

Next I had no DTC, but the truck ran horribly. Interestingly, nothing showed up in the Mode 6 data, either. Replaced plugs which were clearly bad and the truck now ran well enough to drive it. Still not good, but it didn't die when put in gear. Another step in the right direction.

After replacing plugs, I started seeing counts increase in the Mode 6 info. First, #2 cylinder showed a lot of misfires. A few other cylinders showed a handful, but only $0010, so I discounted them for the time being. Eventually, driving it for errands one evening, it set a P0302 code. Replaced the #2 coil and things improved again.

Next I noticed that there still seemed to be a misfire under load or on the highway. Scanner got connected again and I found that #1 cylinder had a high number of misfires. Never saw a DTC this time, but replaced the #1 coil. Ran better again. Even pulled a trailer to the DOT to be inspected and it ran fine getting there. On the way home, I noticed an occasional buck or two, though.

Looked again, no codes, but I had a high number of misfires registered for cylinder #4. Cleared the count, drove it normally for a couple days and it has set a DTC, P0304, and the misfire count for cylinder #4 is pretty high.

So, it looks like I'm on my way to replacing all of the coils, building my new truck one part at a time. No problem. The truck isn't really going to be a daily driver anyway. But am I chasing my tail? It seems like this scanner only reads the worst offender at any given time? Or maybe the PCM, because of the way it's detecting misfires, is only capable of detecting one at a time? That might explain why it didn't find any misfires when the plugs were shot. Is this normal?