A 98 Camry But Maybe You Guys Can Help Out...

[djspawn00]

I'm trying to help a friend of mine, she has a 1998 Camry and recently had the sparkplugs changed because she was getting a CEL for misfiring. She's still getting a CEL but this time its PO300, PO302, PO304, PO306 and PO171. I suspect a vacuum leak somewhere but I haven't been able to hear any noticable ones. I also don't know if the correct plugs were used but I would think that it would misfire on the other bank as well if the plugs were the problem... any suggestions or feedback would be appreciated. The car has 77k miles. Thanks in advance.

[George_Jetson]

Did you remember to gap the plugs before installing them?

[djspawn00]

I asked the person who worked on the car last what gap he used just for my reference and he told me that new plugs didn't need to be gapped... I haven't looked into it further not have i checked to see if the plugs were pre-gapped... i believe the plugs for cylinders 2, 4 and 6 are the ones that are fairly easy to reach so I may pull them out and take a look... I'm just wondering why is it only on that bank and what is causing the lean conditions...

[lenore]

I hope they werent BOSCH plugs....

[George_Jetson]

I asked the person who worked on the car last what gap he used just for my reference and he told me that new plugs didn't need to be gapped... I haven't looked into it further not have i checked to see if the plugs were pre-gapped... i believe the plugs for cylinders 2, 4 and 6 are the ones that are fairly easy to reach so I may pull them out and take a look... I'm just wondering why is it only on that bank and what is causing the lean conditions...

Get another mechanic.. Gapping is important, some engines are more sensitive to the gapping than others. I used to work in a independant shop, and would never consider installing plugs without gapping them. There are some instances where you would change the gapping (like running a cap discharge ignition, or some exotic plug designs).

There should be a emmissions sticker under the hood, which will indicate what the recommended gap should be. The few minutes that you speng gapping is time well spent (especially when you consider how hard it is to change the back plugs.

I think you should look into the P0171 code. If you need some more info on this, pm me with your email. I can send you the alldata diagnostic tree for this code

[djspawn00]

Thanks for the help! I'll try to take a look at it this weekend.