So here's the story. A friend of mine has an 86 se with the 2.8 and he had someone do a valve job because he had a dead miss on cylinder 4. No compression. a little squirt of oil didn't help anything.

He had the car towed to my house after the guy had everything I installed and couldn't get it to run. I pulled the valve covers off and properly set the valve lash.(he had the valves about 2 turns too tight) I got it to run but I have a misfire on cylinder 4 and 5. Did a compression test on all the cylinders. 120 on all except cylinder 3, I have 100. If I pull the plugs out of 4 and 5 there's fuel on them. Connected a spark tester to wires and I have good spark. Changed the plugs just for peace of mind. Still no good.

Frankly I'm stuck. Anyone have any ideas?

Can you get a leak down tester and test the bad cylinders? You'll be able to find out what is the problem with a leak down tester fast and easy.

May seem obvious, but double-check that the spark plug wires are indeed going to the correct plugs.

I'll borrow someone's leak down tester tomorrow.

As for the wires, I've made sure they're in the right order, about 5 times.... Assuming the firing order is indeed 1-2-3-4-5-6

I had the heads on my 460 in my jet boat ported and the guy installed super-high-tech valve seals.....The exhaust valves got stuck open and I had to drive back 10 miles to the launch ramp on 4 cylinders (Hey, It proved that you could run a jet boat engine with DOD!)......The valves need a slight amount of oil seeping by to lubricate them.....Might be your problem; A leak-down will show you if it's that....(Actually, just a compression test should show that!)

Yeah, did a static compression test. 120 on all except 3, which was 100. Did a dynamic (running) compression test, got between 40-50 at idle, and about 80 at a throttle snap.

You can never go wrong using a vacuum gauge. Usually that is a good way to tell what is going on inside the engine. Wanted to save myself some typing so here is a link to a good article on using a vacuum gauge to diagnose engine issues...

http://www.onallcylinders.c...int-engine-problems/

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Fiero's Owned:

1987 Coupe 2.5 5spd May 99 - June 03
1987 GT V6 5spd July 30 2012 - Current

Just checked vacuum. At about 1000 rpm idle the gauge is bouncing maybe 1" between 16 and 17".

quote Originally posted by stinky817: Just checked vacuum. At about 1000 rpm idle the gauge is bouncing maybe 1" between 16 and 17".

What does it read at idle?

that was the idle measurement. the car doesn't seem to want to idle lower then 1000.

Injectors firing? Timing correct?

I'm assuming the injectors are firing because there is fuel on the plugs, and if you listen to the injectors while it's running you can hear them click.

timing is set to 10*. when i got the car the distributor was out a tooth and the timing was way off... but i fixed that

quote Originally posted by stinky817: timing is set to 10*...

With the ALDL jumper in place?

Of course

quote Originally posted by stinky817: Of course

Well... you might be surprised then at the number of "mechanics" who don't.

Stinky, did you ever figure this out?