Today I took a 100 mile trip in my 94 L with the 1.8 16v. Im aware the main seal is leaking but its not too bad. Anyhow, A few hours after the trip I took the car out to the store, midway there the car started vibrating and rpms dropped a few hundred. I pulled into a parking lot and it had a horrible missfire, about half power, and next to nothing on WOT.

There seems to be a hissing sound comming from the left side of the engine bay when your facing it but I cant track it down. When giving it throttle from the TB you can hear it sounds as if theres a CIA or something hooked up, you know, the non muffled growl of unrestricted intakes. So in any case, Im praying for a Vac leak and not a bent valve or cracked head or something. What do you guys think? I tried spraying a bit of brake cleaner around the left side trying to pinpoint it if it were a vac leak but got no difference in RPM from spraying.

The car has 130xxx miles and a new T belt. ANy help is appreciated as Im stuck in DC till I can get this fixed :(

oh, occasionally the RPMS will rise to around a 2k idle, up from the 500RPM where it seems to idle now. During this time the hissing sound from the left side is pretty loud. I need some help pinpointing this and diagnosing it.


I guess get a compression tester from advance autoparts tomorrow and go from there? :mad: :(

oh and im getting no CEL or anything... if my car even has one lol.

Make sure your spark plugs are tight.

I would think that a spark plug out/not in tight would cause a CEL. It did on mine at least. :( Not too sure on anything other than plugs.

I pulled the plugs and everythings fine, plugs look normal. Thats one of the first things i checked :(

ok, the growl is comming from the airbox. The hissing sound seems to be comming from the alt/PS pump area or in the front side under the intake. Anyone got a vac system diagram? Or any ideas on what could be the issue?
Its not an intermittant missfire, its constant, unchanging, sometimes the idle increases as stated earlier and the hissing gets a bit louder. I tried spraying some more brake cleaner around while the engine was cool and got no response or change in idle. Im really worried, and SOL stuck 100 miles from my house till i get this fixed. Or drive it back 100 miles on 2-3 cyls. :(

Ok, the hissing under throttle seems to be comming from the general area of the purge solenoid valve. I still cant pinpoint anything and all lines look to be in good shape, all attatched. What exactly does the purge solenoid valve and could it be at all possible that something randomly happened with it under normal driving conditions? :(

And the miss seems to be comming from cyl 1. The front left cyl. when facing the car. I pulled the plug wire and not much changed in the way of it running. Theres also the smell of raw fuel while Im messing around with it while its running. The smell is comming from the exhaust, and somewhere in the bay.

furthermore theres a light ticking sometimes at very low idle comming from the coil pack area. It seems to happen occasionally but isnt very loud, the motors running so rough its hard to tell whats normal and whats not :(

I guess Im gonna get a can of compressed air and insert one end into a manifold vac tube and gently blow air into the manifold and try to feel where its comming out at. Im near 100% positive its a vac leak under the manifold on the pass side. I still have no clue why it would make cyl 1 missfire though, i guess since its the closest cyl to the vac leak?

cyl 1 has 50 psi
cyl 2 has 90 psi

those were the only 2 checked. When pulling the plug wire for cyl 1 it came off. Im gonna put new plug wires in and see if that corrects the missfire.

The motor has always been very weak, not fast by any means, Im guessing the compression has been low for awhile, i dont know what all of the sudden made it start to miss. Im praying to god its the spark plug wire and that my car will still run, although weak, back to richmond. :(

new plug wire didnt work. Anyone know what normal 1.8 compression readings are?