Last thursday morning I couldnt get my 2004 Cavalier (2.2 Ecotec DOHC) to start. Since the gas tank was on fumes and it was bone chilling cold outside, I figured that the gas lines had frozen up. I pushed the car into a heated barn to thaw out and when the car finally started (hours later), the motor was shaking like hell and when I took it for a test drive it had almost no power. I had a friend come over with his computer and it showed that cylinders 1 & 4 were not firing. We pulled my brothers 2002 Cavalier (same motor) into the barn and started swaping parts to find the problem. After swapping the 2002 ICM with my 2004 ICM the car ran great and everything was back to normal. NOW I went to start the car this morning and its obvious that its only running on 2 cylinders again. Everything was fine for a couple of days. WHAT IS THE DEAL??? Something is causing that ICM to go bad...i think. Any help would be greatly apreciated. THANKS!
Replaced the coil and ICM is still going bad. I'm getting fed up with this. Bought a repair manual and starting reading up on the electrical system. I'm going to tackle it tonight and see what happens. Thanks for your input.
just throwing it out there, but did you check for compression? just because it's a misfire doesn't necessarily mean it's electrical. fuel, spark and compression are all needed to avoid misfire.
87 Firebird
All stock...........lol.
Randizzle, thanks. I will definately look into it tonight. Would the compression or fuel cause that ICM to keep going bad??
Do you have AC Delco plugs, not having AC Delco plugs has been known to cause the coils to go bad
- 2004 Cavalier - 124k, owned since new
Finally got it fixed! I replaced each spark plug with a half stick of dynamite and she runs great! lol. On a serious note... I have Bosch Platinum +4's plugs and i've had them for about a year. Car is running good now. When I checked compression last night, all cylinders were consistently 175-180. We also ruled out the coil pack by taking my coil pack and putting on another cavalier...no problems there. I replaced the ICM one last time to see what happens. If this doesnt work this time, then im droppin it off at the ole repair shop!
Just an FYI, Bosch plugs are about the worst plugs made. We solve a lot of problems with poor running cars simply by replacing Bosch plugs with either AC Delco or Autolites.
