95 Aurora engine suddenly rough on startup, no power now

[angelfire2005]

Today coming back from town I stopped at a restaurant to get something to eat. Upon cranking the engine back up it immediately began running rough, with an extremely rough idle. Putting the car into gear only further increased the roughness, and upon pressing the gas pedal I learned the car now had no power. When trying to accelerate down the road I would hit 3000+ rpm (which makes that car fly under normal conditions) yet I was accelerating *extremely* slowly. I pulled off about a mile down the road and shut off the car, to which white smoke immediately began pouring out of the engine (from near the back of the engine). I have experienced a loss of power before, however upon replacing a coil fixed the problem completely, this is totally different. Two of the coils were bad from this incident, still when we replaced both we still have a rough idle and no power. Also, it should be mentioned that now whenever the car is shut up there is a strong chemical smell coming from the car. Honestly it smells like ether but it's probably just unburned gas from the skipping coils.

My questions: could the spark plugs be fouled from unburned gas from the coils not firing during the 15 min drive to get the car home? Or could the catalytic converters be stopped up instead from all of the unburned gas?

What really boggles me though, is how could the car be running 100% fine, I mean great, then after shutting it off immediately start running bad? There were no hints of a failure coming yet it happened. My dad (quite an experienced mechanic) says the timing chains could have jumped as well, as the engine was fine prior to startup, and the chains are under great load when the engine first hits.

Any thoughts or ideas as to what the problem is would be greatly appreciated.

[maxwedge]

Welcome to AF. This requires on site diagnosis, misfire codes, are the plugs coolant fouled ,is there spark to all 8 plugs. Basic diagnostic steps must be performed, no magic bullet here.

[angelfire2005]

Originally Posted by maxwedge

Welcome to AF. This requires on site diagnosis, misfire codes, are the plugs coolant fouled ,is there spark to all 8 plugs. Basic diagnostic steps must be performed, no magic bullet here.

Thank you for the welcome and quick reply. No trouble codes showed up when we plugged it in, however, it is OBD1 being a 95 Olds and all, so no engine trouble would show up anyways. As far as spark to all 8 plugs, there is good reason to check that out. It's very possible some wires could be bad, and would explain an immediate drop in power. Again thanks for the reply.

[angelfire2005]

*Update*

after 3 hours of work, we discovered the ignition model had gone bad, and was limiting one of the coils from firing. Luckily we had a spare and once we had it bolted on, the engine ran fine. 100% now

[maxwedge]

Good work, like I said basic diagnostics.