I just changed the spark plugs and wires in our cavalier maybe 1,000 miles ago if that. That smoothed out the rough idle and fuel mileage problem it was having. But now its chugging again. Kind of like its missing. But the fuel mileage hasnt dropped and there is no loss in power that I have noticed. Also, no check engine light. Im a little stumped. Im think maybe dirty injectors or something? Anyone have any ideas as to why my car is running crappy again? Thanks.


-2000 cavalier 2.2l 3 speed base sedan silver
-U.S.A Love it or leave it

well first thing is i would pull them out and see if the gap is still the same. if not correct that. then the next thing i would shoot for is a injector cleaning. then if still nothing i woukd look into the coils. our cars are known for having coils go bad and never setting lights at all. i know since i had one fail on me and even a tech 2 could not see it. plus there cheap enough to replace so it never hurts. and i would also clean out the IAC port as those get gunky and filled with crap. that should help a bit actually. good luck!

Thanks for the tips. I hate not having a smooth running car. Btw, I love you car in your sig. It looks really clean.


-2000 cavalier 2.2l 3 speed base sedan silver
-U.S.A Love it or leave it

Lol thanks, but she looks nothing like that. Azncavi made the sig the way he thought she shoukd look, im more of the bodykit kind of guy. But when im done she will look great, to me anyway and no problem on the tips, hopefully i was able to help. goodluck with her!

The check engine light came on a few days ago. i finally got the code read. It was showing 0303 and 0480 codes. Does anyone know what they mean? I havent had a chance to check the plugs yet.


-2000 cavalier 2.2l 3 speed base sedan silver
-U.S.A Love it or leave it

P0303 Cylinder 3 Misfire Detected

P0480 Cooling Fan I Control Circuit Malfunction

Something is causing you #3 cylinder to misfire. If the plugs are new my guess would be spark plug wire.

Where the hell did you take your car that they just told you the code numbers and not what they meant? what a f-ing joke.

The spark plug wires are new too. I might try replacing the ngk plugs with double platinum autolites. At least then I can check the gap. When I bought the ngk's, I was told I cant gap them for some reason. As for the cooling fan control circuit code, would that mean a bad relay? I just replaced that relay about a month or 2 ago when I it went bad and was causing my car to over heat. I used the scan tool from one of the techs at my job.


-2000 cavalier 2.2l 3 speed base sedan silver
-U.S.A Love it or leave it

ok so after 9 months of my car not running b/c of a head gasket i did a pnp 4-2-1 header catback i put new ngk plugs bosh wires n oem coils but every morning for the past week when i start my car in the morning i pull po301 cylinder 1 misfire only.

what kind of wires did u put in? ive had problems with the cheap ones. If u got the cheap champion ones, u might want to try replacing them with better ones

Dont get the +2 plugs they are a joke and you cant gap them just get the regular ones.

I run AC Delco Platinum's in my car (the stock plugs).

i put ngk g platinum plugs and bosh wires

use AC Delco, though Ironicly NGK does make some plugs for AC Delco....

My car runs a better after replacing the NGK plugs that I just put in with autolite plugs and replaced the #3 spark plug wire. Im wondering if it would make any difference to replace the coil pack? I called orielly auto parts and i think the guy said it was around $30. Do the coil packs come as all one piece or are they separate? The car has 200,000 miles on it.


-2000 cavalier 2.2l 3 speed base sedan silver
-U.S.A Love it or leave it

separate one powers 1n2 and the other does 3n4

jovan raices wrote:separate one powers 1n2 and the other does 3n4

NO. THIS IS INCORRECT.


one coil does cylinders 1 &4 and the other does 2 & 3.



JBO Stickers! Get yours today!

Of course. I think its fixedand thenthe car goes right back to doing what it was doing. The techs at my job said it could be an injector. They said to ohm them out and go from there. Does a cylinder #3 misfire sound like it could be an injector? Will it wreck anything if I cant fix this right away and I have to drive it like this for a while?


-2000 cavalier 2.2l 3 speed base sedan silver
-U.S.A Love it or leave it

im having almost the same problems on my wifes 98 sunfire se 2.2L. but mine is that last weekend i seafoamed the hole engine from fuel tank to the cylinder banks. i ran the engine for 2 hours in the oil and i let the engine sit for 5 hours with the seafoam in the vac lines. i then started the engine ran all the white smoke out of the tail pipe. i then changed the oil and then the spark plugs with ac delco rapid fires part #12 and BWD wires. i gaped the plugs for .060 like the haynes book said. the only thing is that i could not make sure the wires where making a good connection because of the small space but i pused down on the top of them to make sure they are all the way down. i started up the engine and it idle really smoothly no problems. so i took it out for a drive about 2 miles i did two small pulls one with the AC on and one without. it ran just fine but when i got home and started to idle it started like chugging like it was starving for something or missfireing, so i gave it some gas RPM's went up but felt like almost a missfire too. then when it idled back down to normal it was still chugging then it just jumped up to like 2,100 rpm and the CEL came on and thats when i shut it off. i don't have a code reader and the nearist shop is 15 miles away. so today i fired it up and it idled just smoothly again even when it got to operation temps. so i took it out and ran just fine until i got to the end of the dirt road then it started chugging along again at idle so i turned around and again ran just fine at speeds then got back still idle rough again. so i turned off the engine and started it up again and the weird thing is that it idled just fine. so can anybody help me?