hi guys;

this is my first post. i have a '96 sunfire 2.4L and its basically stock as my DD. i was driving today to school and made a left hand turn drove a km went to accelerate and BAM!! jsut instantly missing on two cylinders. my FPR has been leaking a bit starting a few weeks ago so i thought maybe it went completely and i had no fuel pressure anymore. anyway sorta luckily i was right in front of the GM dealer so i limped it in and we had a look. i was with the mechanic the whole time, who again luckily, is an old friend.

replaced the FPR which i had in my trunk waiting to go on, but i have been lazy ...... that did not change anything.

turns out cylinders 1 and 3 are not firing at all. which to me indicates that the coils are fine. if it were 1&4 misfiring or 2&3 i would figure it was a coil. anyway our conclusion was that its the ICM. i tried to search and found a lot of guys taking the ICM to autozone to test it but i am unaware of anywhee in ontario i can have it tested.

question is if i am diagnosing this accurately. i am not too farmiliar with the problems of these cars. the mechanic said this is not an overly common thing to fail on these cars... is he wrong??

i am goign to try to find a used ICM from the junk yard tomorrow since a new one is $380 dealer or $330 car quest. for now the car sits at the dealership. are there any tests i can do myself on the ICM. ie. specific voltages/ resistances to check??

car has 235000km on it and not much has been replaced. its basically almost all oem. (100 000km were put on by me in less than 3 years).


james

first would be the housing that holds the coils then the Icm. He is right , very common. the coil housing more around here, seems that no one changes them till it screws up, Its like a distributor cap it should be included in a tune up. Do a search on the coil tower or coil housing. I have posted info several times. they internally short causing no spark on that post, its actually either going to another plug or to ground. Normally an Icm will shut down a whole coil, not half of one. I would go with changing the housing.


01 cav w/01 3400 gam gt 4t45e

thanks for the reply and info. that's a way cheaper thing to check first. hahaa too bad my car just got locked into the dealership for the night/ possible the weekend. going to search for that info now.
thanks,

james

yep, do the white coil pack housing deal, then new plug boots and spark plugs while you are in there.


good luck