Engine misfires and knocks

All of a sudden my 1993 2.3L Quad 4 started to lose power on my way home from work last week. I pulled over and the engine had a very rough idle and some knocking when I hit the accelerator while in neutral. I was told it could be the coil packs. Does anyone know if these things can break all of a sudden?

Is the ignition system difficult to troubleshoot? This distributorless system has got me confused.

Thanks in advance!

There are several components to the distributerless ignition system that will cause this problem. The components of this system are: Crank position sensor, cam position sensor, ignition module, coils, plug boots, spark plugs and the engine control module.

On your particular vehicle the coils are located under the center section between the cams along with the plug boots, ignition module and spark plugs. Any of these components can go bad at any time and cause the problems you speak of. The knocking in the engine seems to indicate a misfire that may be caused by either the plugs, coils or ignition module.

Did you get a check engine light? If so did you get the codes? If you know the codes post them as it will help to more easily point you in the right direction.

Thanks for the help.

I don't recall getting a check engine light...I'll double check though (the car is stranded at the park and ride; I'm about to go out there and put the coil housing back on and will see).

I did a resistance check on the coils. Both coils seem okay; by that I mean I measured the resistance between the two terminals on each coils. Both readings showed zero when using 20k range.

Do you know if there is a way to check the coil housing or ignition module?

Thanks again!

Matt

Unfortunately Matt the book I have does not go into great detail on the testing of the coil or the ignition module. There is one other possibility here that is not ignition related but is timing related. If the timing chain slipped or jumped it could cause this issue.

Unfortunately Matt the book I have does not go into great detail on the testing of the coil or the ignition module. There is one other possibility here that is not ignition related but is timing related. If the timing chain slipped or jumped it could cause this issue.

I had it towed to a local repair shop...they're going to look at it in the morning...will let you know what they tell me.

Thanks for your help.

Matt

Unfortunately Matt the book I have does not go into great detail on the testing of the coil or the ignition module. There is one other possibility here that is not ignition related but is timing related. If the timing chain slipped or jumped it could cause this issue.

Bad news. Repair shop says head gasket is bad. They also advised that once they remove the head, there might be other problems.

This car isn't worth the money or headache. I've decided to dispose of the vehicle.

Unfortunately, that is one of the issues with older vehicles and engines. When they go bad it is more cost effective to replace the vehicle than the engine itself. I hope it works out for you.