I just took my 1997 Camaro Convertible out from storage (i store it while at school (sept-may) and not more then 1 day goes by and my SES light flashes and i have a misfire. My exhaust smells like gas and the pressure feels a little weak. My question is that I figure it is probably the plugs/wires and maybe a coil pack. What are the best plugs/wires for a 3.8 and how do I go about changing them (should i do it myself or go to a shop, i heard its a bitch). Also is there anyway to determine if its my coil pack and maybe not the plugs/wires. Also my car has all orginal plugs/wires and it has 77,300 miles. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!


thanks,
Mark

 

77k and stock wires you need to replace them... you will likely save money jsut form gas mileage...


for a bad coil, usually you see take car to autozone and scan to see which cylinders are misfiring if there are two cylinders misfireing and tey happen to be the same coil (like 2 and 5) then you have a bad coild. But with your car its hard to say if you might have 2 bad wires...

skim the "the great misfire mystery thread" above... I went with msd 8.5 mm and NGk plugs with 1000* heat sheathing and its worked great, some say ytou need it some say its over kill but my car is running great and pulling great mph over a year later at the track.

best deals I saw on the wires for v6s were at www.ftpp.net plugs you can get form a car store, and I got the heat sheething in a 6' roll at summit(cut to one foot per cylinder)

 

WOW you made it that long on the original wires?! GM actually had a TSB out on '95-'98 3.8 V6 plug wires and they were replacing them for free up to 7 years/70K miles. The stock 3.8 plug wires were known to go bad early.

I'd be willing to bet it's just wires, but you might as well go ahead and do the plugs while you're at it. Before I found out about the recall, I paid the dealer like $260 for the plug/wire replacement, but then when I found out about the TSB, I got reimbursed, but $250+ is what you can expect if you take it to the dealer for plugs/wires.

 

NGK TR55 plugs, Taylor 8mm Spiro Pro Wires pre cut for your car. Shouldnt be more than $50 shipped to your door from any site.

 

The last time my SES light flashed with a misfire, it was just a coil. Of course now, it's misfiring again... changed all the plugs and wires... still misfires. think it's a fuel injector? help! it's #4... and i can feel a miss only when it's warm, usually just on the lower side on 2nd and 3rd gear. any ideas?

 

Pound on it and see if you get an SES light. If you do, switch two of the coils, wait for the new SES light to appear, and see if the misfire jumped to another cyl. If so, its your coil again. I had a miss, then i had another one on a diff coil 2 weeks later.