From the great advise of another board member, I think I located my rough idle problem. I was told to wait until it was dark and open the hood with the engine running and check for flashes of blue light, which I did. On both sides of the engine i noticed a pretty impressive lightshow. Blue flashes in several spots. My question is, is this a definite sign of plug wires shorting out and causing a rough idle? Should I just go ahead and replace all the wires? And how difficult is it to do this? I'm pretty sure this is not normal.

 

Since nobody chimed in yet,I will offer my02.The spark at each cylinder is trying to find a ground.Do your spark plugs have enough ribs(circles at the top of the plug) on them?Next, the plug wires may be shorting out i.e. going south.Next,did you see any light show by the coil?Could be a grounding problem there as well.May just need new connecting wires(harness) to the coil.I understand this problem can also originate at the opti(distributor).Hope this helps a little.My02(Light show=loss of power).

 

Arcing. Time for new wires

 

No lightshow at opti. Only along the wire itself. Plugs are brand new, so it might be time for a wire change. Should I go with the bosch wires?

 

Stock wires.My02(See if this helps the problem first).

 

if you see actual archs of electricity then you have a problem but if its just a flash at the boot then i think youre ok. back when i did headers i kinda burnt a couple wires which caused my car to shake violently under load so thats something you could look for.

 

Yea thanks. I am seeing blue flashes in the wire itself. Not at he ends or the boots. Then again I haven't looked real close at the boot area.

I think I will get them changed. I have read nightmare stories about changing these things yourself. Any one know what the labor hours for wires are at the dealer. It might be worth just paying to have it done.