Rough running

Tiny
TRAVIS BUTLER2
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  • 2005 MAZDA TRIBUTE
  • 150,000 MILES
Okay, the camshaft sensor, crankshaft sensor vacuum lines, spark plugs, and coil packs have all been replaced. Did the timing, it still runs rough. What could it be it? Sounds like it's golfing or also gurgling. Air filter has also been changed.
Saturday, March 19th, 2022 AT 1:12 PM

14 Replies

Tiny
AL514
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Hello, it could be a number of things, we actually have a guide for fluid noises like that. Are you hearing a bubbling type of noise inside the vehicle? Like coolant running through the heater core with air in it? Does the vehicle lack power or struggle to get over a certain MPH/RPM?

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/vehicle-bubbling-noise
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Saturday, March 19th, 2022 AT 2:21 PM
Tiny
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I know it doesn't sound like air in the lines from the coolant at all. It does lag power going up hills and it takes forever to get up to speed and it is throwing couple codes off of the OBD2. When we read the codes all seen the pictures of the coach that it's throwing.
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Saturday, March 19th, 2022 AT 4:57 PM
Tiny
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Is this 2.3l or 3.0l? So, you replaced all the ignition coils? There's a possibility of crank sensor wiring issue or a failing ECM. I also see alot of I/M readiness monitors have not run. Since these coil drivers are internal to the ECM and you're getting ignition primary circuit codes, the primary coil circuit is controlled directly from the ECM. So, if you had any coils that previously had shorted out, they can easily take out the driver in the engine computer on this design. The codes are listing coils A and B, it looks like that would be cylinders 1 and 2. You can try to move the coils to different cylinders and see if the codes follow to a different cylinder, but you have no power because you probably have 2 cylinders that are not firing the ignition at all. The P0351 is also giving you a Catalytic Converter warning. So, it might even have cylinder deactivation on this model and the fuel injectors might be shut down to protect the converter. The Technical Service Bulletin about these particular codes is stating radio interference from the ignition system. If you try moving the coils to cylinders 3 and 4 and the codes follow to C and D for example. You'll know the coils or spark plugs are at fault. Im assuming you bought aftermarket plugs and coils? That may be part of the problem as well. But if the previous coils were shorted out and burned the ecm drivers for those cylinders, you'll need to replace the ecm. These are 2 wire coils, you can check their resistance across the 2 pins and compare them with the old coils or the other cylinders coils. But I wouldnt drive this anymore. You dont want to damage the converter.

As you can see in the 2nd TSB, this does have Fuel Injector shutdown, with Ignition primary circuit failure. So if the coils are not bad, the ecm ignition coil drivers have most likely failed. So if this is the 2.3liter engine, its only running on 2 cylinders right now.
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Saturday, March 19th, 2022 AT 5:46 PM
Tiny
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It's the 3.0-liter engine and have replaced coils twice and spark plugs once. The ones that they have on there now the coils are Bosch brand. How would I go about finding if it is the ECM exactly is that by testing cylinder 3 and 4 with 1 and 2 coil or is there another procedure?
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Saturday, March 19th, 2022 AT 6:51 PM
Tiny
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It's the 3.0 liter engine and have replaced coils twice and spark plugs once the ones that they have on there now the coils are Bosch brand and how would I go about finding if it is the ECM exactly is that by testing cylinder 3 and 4 with 1 and 2 coil or is there another procedure I'm not exactly sure to experience with the code readers as much as I'd like, but I am mechanically inclined on repairing cars just not extremely expert material if that's what you want to call it. So you might have to break it down a little bit more.
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Saturday, March 19th, 2022 AT 7:04 PM
Tiny
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Well, if you have the old original coils you took off, obviously you were having misfiring issues and possibly misfire codes. If you take the old coils and set your multimeter on the Ohms setting and go across the 2 pins of an Ignition coil, you will get the resistance reading of the coils primary circuit. The primary circuit is battery power on one pin of the coil and the ECM will ground the other pin for about 1-2ms. When it releases the ground from the primary side of the coil, the magnetic field in the primary collapses and this induces extremely high voltage into the secondary circuit (thousands of volts) out through the spark plug. Just to explain how this all works.

I did find out that the P0351 and P0352 are cylinders 1 and 2. Also included a wiring diagram for the ignition coils. The red wire is the battery feed to each coil. so, at Key On engine off, you should have 12volts on each red wire at each coil.

If you have a 12volt automotive test light, this is the easiest way to check these, also a "spark tester" that you can just attach to the end of the coil to see if you have any spark at all from cylinders 1 and 2. You should pull the Fuel Pump Relay or Trip the Inertia Switch so that you don't have any fuel pressure. It's not needed for checking spark and you don't want to be dumping any more raw fuel down the exhaust to the Catalytic Converter. Thats how they get ruined and eventually melt down and clog up the exhaust.

So, on cylinders 1 and 2, unplug the coil and just touch the connector pin and check for battery power on the red wire first, Key On engine off. Don't jam the test light into the coils harness plug. it will spread the pins.
Next take your test light and hook it to battery positive, unplug the coil that has a red wire and a light green/white wire, that's cylinder #1.

With the fuel system disabled, just touch the test light to the light green/white wire on the coil harness connector and have someone crank the engine over for you. The test light should flash, because remember that the ECM grounds that wire to fire the ignition coil. So, if the 12-volt test light flashes, that means the ECM is controlling the ground wire at that coil. If it doesn't flash, that means that the ECM is has no control over the coils ground side. The driver has been damaged.

You can do this on cylinder #3 to see the test light flash to get the idea. But its very easy.
Test light on battery positive, let the ECM control the negative side, test light should flash.
Some people will test an ignition coil by having the spark jump to the test light hooked to battery negative, but I don't recommend this unless you really know what you're doing. There are thousands of volts coming out of these coils, especially the COP (coil over plug) design. They can push up to 30k volts.
If you have any questions before you run any tests just ask first.

The last picture is the kind of spark tester I use, connect to the end of a spark plug wire or coil, clip to ground. Crank the engine.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-test-an-ignition-system

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-use-a-test-light-circuit-tester
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Saturday, March 19th, 2022 AT 8:52 PM
Tiny
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No spark from 1.
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Sunday, March 20th, 2022 AT 12:52 PM
Tiny
AL514
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Sorry to hear that. Did you try the test light on the negative coil wire, the lite green/white wire and have the test light on battery positive and see if the ECM driver is working? Also maybe try moving a different coil over there and see if you get spark on number 1. The ECM will shut down the #1 fuel injector if it senses an issue in that primary ignition circuit. There's an internal resistor in the ECM and it can monitor current flow on that circuit, that's how it would see and issue and disable the injector to protect the converter. Make sure you have 12volts on that red wire as well.
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Sunday, March 20th, 2022 AT 1:04 PM
Tiny
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I just used a spark plug tester.
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Sunday, March 20th, 2022 AT 8:13 PM
Tiny
AL514
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Have you tried swapping coils? and you need to find out if you have 12 volts on the red wire. Because you have 2 cylinders that are showing codes for ignition coils. If those 2 cylinders are missing the power feeds on the red wire, they are not going to be active. You can even just get a cheap multimeter from Walmart, set it on the 20volt setting, DC volts. and check the red wire with the red meter lead and the black lead on battery negative. If you're still planning on fixing the vehicle.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-use-a-voltmeter
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Monday, March 21st, 2022 AT 8:55 AM
Tiny
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Yes, we are still planning on fixing it. I just didn't get a chance to go work on it today. It will probably be Thursday before I get back to it to work on it.
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Monday, March 21st, 2022 AT 11:12 PM
Tiny
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Okay, let us know if you need any more information. If it turns out to be the ECM, most need to be programmed, but there is a company that does play and play ECM programming.
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Tuesday, March 22nd, 2022 AT 9:12 AM
Tiny
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What company is that?
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Wednesday, March 23rd, 2022 AT 5:30 PM
Tiny
AL514
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Hello, its "www. Fs1inc. Com" Flagship One, but have you tested to see if there is power at the coils and/or control from the ECM yet? Before replacing an ECM you want to figure out why the previous one failed, because if the problem is still there, you're just going to cause the new ECM to fail. Each of the current ECMs power feeds and ground wires need to check. And the wiring to those coils needs to check that there's no short circuits to ground. You didnt get cylinder misfire codes, you have ECM primary ignition circuit failures, So getting a multimeter and checking these circuits is extremely important.
The design of the circuits that control these ignition coils is a terrible set up. There is no protection, If cylinder #1's control wire has a break in the insolation and it's touching any metal, there goes the coils driver again, failed. The harness from where the coils are to the ECM needs to be checked. Its odd 2 primary circuits failed at once.
Do you have the original coils? I hope.
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Wednesday, March 23rd, 2022 AT 6:43 PM

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