Help with misfire
 

2000 Ford F-250 V-10 Gas.

Drove the truck from San Diego to Tennessee, no problems whole way.

Here for about a month and once the truck got warm it would begin sputtering. Thought it was misfire. Threw a code and sure enough it's misfire on cylinder 1 and 9. Two cylinders same time. Crap. So I throw some injector cleaner in it and no change.

So I move the injector of cylinder 1 to cylinder 2 and the coil of cylinder 1 to cylinder 3, so that if it trips 2 or 3 I know which part went bad. Do the same thing for cylinder 9, move injector 9 up to injector 7 and coil 9 to coil 8.

Drive the truck again, same thing. Truck drives fine at first then begins to sputter about the time the engine gets warm. Once again got the code read expecting it to be cylinders 2, 3, 7, or 8. Well if it had been I wouldn't be asking for help. Cylinder 5 threw a code. Double crap.

While driving, the sputtering is not consistent, sputtering stops and starts no matter if I am going up hill or down hill, slowing down or speeding up. It just comes and goes. So what's everyone's input?

possible bad gas, dirty MAF, or bad plugs. Trust me, the plugs can go bad. I had two go bad in less than 3000 miles... Worse comes to worse, take it to your local ford dealer and spend 100 bucks on a diagnostic test. Only their scanners/computers will communicate well with the truck.
hope this helps

Common problem with modular engines.
Replace your plugs and coil packs before you ruin the catalytic converter.
Accel makes lower cost coil pack kits. Use Autolite APP103 plugs.
Take your time. It is a PITA job. The old boots may stick to the plugs. Blow the dirt out of the plug holes before removing the plugs. Use dielectric grease on the boots. Anti-seize on the plug threads. Get a swivel spark plug socket too. Makes the job go better.

Replaced the plugs when I bought the truck, about 5000 miles ago. How would sporadic misfires mean a bad plug? If the plug was bad wouldn't it always misfire same cylinder? I just don't get why I would get a sporadic misfire. I will check those ideas though. Which one is the MAF? I get MAF and MAP mixed up all the time.

MAF is the sensor in your air filter housing.

if that was bad wouldn't it throw a code? what would be bad about it? something internal that I wouldn't be able to see?

might not be bad might just need to be cleaned as stated above you can get some cleaner from the parts store

In the Army, when our weapons missfired we would apply S.P.O.R.T.S.
Slap Pull Observe Release Tap Squeeze...... Hope this helps :)
Mark

Be careful of the type of anti sieze you use, I would just use dielectic grease, anti sieze with copper in it will ruin the heads.

well the fact that my misfires are random, i'm guessing that it's not my plugs. i pulled a couple just to check though and they looked fine. ill try to clean the MAF next and see what happens. maybe my gas is just that bad that the injector cleaner didn't help it? maybe ill try the lucas oil fuel stuff.

I have just gone through this, trust me.... it's aggravating. The best thing to do like I said in my first reply, is to go to your local ford dealer and just have them diagnose it. Don't let them fix it for you b/c you can buy 8 motorcraft plugs from autozone for the price of two from the dealer. Also, may I ask what plugs you used? I used Autolite 103's and I burnt up two of them in 3000 miles. The plugs look fine, but trust me..... they can be bad.
hope this helps!


p.s.

I'm not saying that the plugs are bad.... just a good chance that they could be. It can be lots of things from a vacuum leak, to a bad coil pack, bad ground, bad plugs, the list goes on and on. I spent 800 bucks and all I ended up truely fixing was the two plugs that the dealer told me was bad.

I don't remember what plugs I used. I'd have to pull em again and look. I live in farm territory in Tennessee, I don't even know where the nearest ford dealership is and I don't like driving it while it's missing and sputtering. Did you have the same random and sporadic misfires while driving?

if you going to go through the trouble of pulling them, do yourself a favor and do a resistance check on each plug, like was said erlier... they may look good but may not be
Mark

Took it to a mechanic of mine and had him hook it up to his snap on scanner(the newest/most updated one on the market). Also Remember, it took me 500 miles of driving to finally get the damn thing to through a cel. Anyways, his scanner did nothing more than what the cheap scanners @ autozone do. Ford has in my opinion the greatest upper hand with these trucks because they are set up for obd2 but are really only obd1(or atlest my non ca one is), so all the "normal" scanners can't communicate very well with the truck. I would just get hesistation and miss fires. I checked everywhere for vacuum leaks, clean the throttle body, cleaned the IAC, cleaned the MAF ( be careful and read directions when you do this otherwise you'll ruin it ), changed all the coil packs, and I can't remember what all else. to no avail.

Similar to your experience, The truck drug a 38' gooseneck on a 1200 mile round trip (picking up some farm equipement from wisconsin) having the piss drove out of it and it never missed a beat. A week later I started having the miss fires. Drove the truck for over a week trying to get a cel to come on. Long story short, I took it to ford even though I don't trust any dealership because no matter if they breake something ....it's always "it was like that when it came here" or "we're not responsible for....." But they showed me the fuel maps from the truck and switched some of the coil packs and plugs around and figured out what actually was wrong. Due to my truck not having a cat on it anymore and the increase of ethanol in the fuel, alot of vehicles run lean. Whether I just got a bad set of Plugs, or if it was increased heat/stress from the lean condition....I ruined a set of plugs. Even though the plugs were bad, they'd still fire under some/most of conditions but would miss under others (mainly under load or cold)
If you can't take it to a ford dealer, then I suggest you look for vacuum leaks, then replace the coil packs if they haven't been (get ones from ebay, I can give you a link if you'd like for "said" motorcraft surplus cops ) and put in motorcraft plugs from autozone. Also, have you changed your fuel filter lately???? (or has it ever been changed period????)
Hope that some of this story book I wrote helps you. Feel free to pm me if you'd like, or you can look @ my profile at the posts/threads that I've posted when I was having troubles.
Thanks,
Robert

where can i find proper resistance for my plugs? and it's the resistance between the two ends?