A horrible Runing escape!

[spflick]

I have a 2004 ford escape 3.0l with 130k on it. after this last week of rain and moist weather this escape is running so horrible its not even drivable... it wont stay running in the morning, and when you do get it to stay running it will not move in gear...
Heres some history, I has had the far back cat replaced, Car ran after that...
this is what i have done to diagnose so far, i pulled the front o2 out to see if the caytalitic was pluged but still ran like crap. un hooked the egr tube to see if the back cat was plugged, still ran crapy, plenty of exhaust coming out the tail pipe so its not the cats...

If you can get it to rev up it runs alot better with slit miss.... i here a sucking noise so i am thinking the the intake plemun is cracked or the gaskets are shot..
also every one of the coils are cracked where there they plug in.

Am i looking in the right direction with this or is there something else i am missing?

thanks for you insight! spflick

[Off_Timing]

Crack on the coils is never a good thing. Take them off and compare them to new ones at an auto parts store. Id's say that's the cause or contributing to your problem.

[i_a_n112784]

Do you have any codes? A vacuum leak in the intake will cause both banks to run lean. Multiple coils going bad at the same time, while possible, is extremely unlikely. Unhooking the egr tube or removing the 02 will not let enough exhaust flow to run normally, and normally the 3rd, undercar converter gets clogged with the guts of the front converters. When that happens, normally the side of the egr valve blows out. Those engines sound a little sucky, but if you think it is excessive, try this. Unplug the MAF sensor, try and start it 2-3 times, it will force the pcm to go into a default mode and ignore the sensor, hence ignoring vacuum leaks. You will set maf codes, and IAT codes by unplugging the sensor. At hot idle your maf should read .8v I believe (id have to look it up) even a tenth or two of a volt makes the engine run like crap.

[65comet]

Since it was 3 years ago, I'll bet it was fixed by now. But to continue the post for anyone else having such a situation, here is some more. I've had the cat issue. Since I rarely drive it myself, other family members have had the EGR explode because of the back pressure. I'm now in the habit of dropping the back cat every two months to tap out all the guts from the front two that are trying to clog it. Since the original poster mentioned all the rain, I would suspect water in one of the spark plug tubes. The fronts are covered by that plastic shield and almost never get moisture in them. It has almost never happened to me near home where I could easily blow them out. I keep two McDonald's straws in the glove box. Insert the end of one inside the other. Pull the plug wires and use the elongated straw to blow out any water. The large vacuum hose under the intake at the right side is famous for cracking. So is the one at the back center top of the engine.