1997 Ford e- 350 van automatic transmission 14 seats. 77K

History
My church inherited this van with the building they purchased. It sat for three years before we got it. Some kids vandalized the van breaking out five windows and slashing three tires. I purchased the van to help them out and get it off the property since it had been sitting vandalized for several months. It was sitting under a large awning and tarped to keep the moisture out of the vehicle. I didn't know anything about the van when I purchased it including what year it was. I put on the spare and two new tires. The battery was so dead it couldn't be jumpstarted so I installed a new battery.

Problem
With a new battery and some new gas it crank over and it fired right up but had a bad miss. I limped it home and started troubleshooting. I pulled codes and it had a P0351, P0352, P0353, P0357. Primary and secondary coil failure. I cleared all the codes. I swapped the four bad coil's with the four good coils because I didn't believe four coils would fail at the same time. I ran it until the check engine light came on and I had the exact same codes. I have power to all of the coils but I have no ground pulse on cylinders 1, 2, 3 and 7 (tested with noid light). Since everything I read points to a wiring problem I did an ohms check from the coil connector all the way to the PCM connector socket for cylinder seven and had good continuity through the wiring. Ohms test from coil connector back to computer with plug connected is open as I assume it should be. I cleared all codes and did a retest and still have no ground pulse. I also removed the chassis ground that is below the passengers wiper blade and the ground that goes to the body from the negative side of the battery. I cleaned both ends of each of those and reinstalled using dielectric grease. At this point with 4 hard fails I am thinking PCM but wondering if I am missing something obvious. I pulled the PCM and the physical inspection looks fine.

 

I purchased my 97 E350 15 passenger van not long ago. It was also a church van. Mine had 4 misfire codes as well. I did a compression test on all the cylinders an they were all 180-185psi. I noticed the plug gaps were huge. I also tested the coils to find 5 bad coils. Everything I listed can cause misfire codes. I put new plugs in, bravex coils $35 for the whole set and it runs perfect now with no more lights. I reviewed and compared the coils on my YouTube page Tepco Cycle Repair if your interested. The OEM coils go bad around 100k but since you swapped them and got the same codes, I would check the plugs, compression, and fuel pressure before you went any further.

 

Is be leaning towards PCM too since you were able to verify with a mood. but could it be possible the PCM picks up multiple grounds from a different source you haven't found yet?

 

Well I talked to the salvage yards today and they tell me there's not a single PCM in the state of Kansas for my van. 1 yard was able to locate one in Texas for $100 but it would take a few days to get here. Since I am still not hundred percent sure it is a bad PCM I just decided to put all the other things back together that I have torn apart not related to the engine problem. I still needed to secure the large side window and put all the trim back on the five windows that were broken out so I'm hoping I will have an epiphany while I'm doing cleanup work.

 

[QUOTE=funnyfarmman;17385379]Well I talked to the salvage yards today and they tell me there's not a single PCM in the state of Kansas for my van. 1 yard was able to locate one in Texas for $100 but it would take a few days to get here. Since I am still not hundred percent sure it is a bad PCM I just decided to put all the other things back together that I have torn apart not related to the engine problem. I still needed to secure the large side window and put all the trim back on the five windows that were broken out so I'm hoping I will have an epiphany while I'm doing cleanup work.

Found another thread that had the last four cylinders in the firing order with same issue I had on the first four cylinders in the firing order. He fixed his with a PCM.

I purchased a Re-man from O'reilys and installed it. Started and ran better than it has. Drove fine with a slight miss.

P0306- guessing that is a bad coil since #6 did not have a code before I moved coils

p0453- no idea yet

p0141- o2 sensor heater bank one.

P0161 - o2 sensor heater bank two

More research ahead but PCM did get dead coils firing. Any help will be greatly appreciated!