Cyl 1 & 2 misfire help

Ok, My '99 Tacoma with 2.7l/5 speed is misfiring pretty bad at idle. It is also fairly hard to start. quite a few turns before it fires. The misfire seems to clean up with increased engine speed but its pretty damn gutless. I know its a 4 banger, but it can barely pull 4th gear on the fwy with 31" tires. I just bought it. Got a crazy good deal on it and bought it from my brother in law who bought it new. he only drove it about a mile to work each day and it sat a lot when he was deployed multiple times. It threw codes for cyl 1 and cyl 2 misfires. My first thoughts were plugs or wires or possibly a fuel filter. I installed NAPA's premium plug wires and whatever the reccomended plug was. its escaping me at the moment. I also replaced the fuel filter. What a difficult place they put that!!! anyway, no help. Still misfiring pretty badly. I also though maybe the coil packs, but its misfiring on cyl 1 & 2 and the coil packs are 1&4/2&3, so if it was a coil pack problem it seems to me that it would misfire on 1&4 or 2&3, not 1&2. my next thought is cam position sensor, since thats what triggers the ignition. Is this a common occurance? What else could be causing this issue? Are there common problems that these engines have?
Thanks for any help!
Nik

 

open the radiator cap and see if you got coolant in the radiator and reservor tank, if you dont or its low in radiator than its your head gasket, if coolant level is fine check compression on all the cyl they should be close with in 10 psi

 

Misfire code is what caused me to sell my '03 Frontier and buy a new Taco.

Possibilities include plugs, injectors, low compression, leaky intake manifold gasket, head gasket, and EGR problems. Mine turned out to be crud in the EGR tubes.

It can be a difficult and expensive problem to troubleshoot.

bill

 

How did run before? If OK. Then check your work. Remove the plugs and look for issues you could have caused.
Damaged wires, misthreaded plugs, that kind of stuff.

 

This... and it still could be your coils. Inspect them carefully for small grey arc marks, or (in the dark) mist them with water and look for arcs. KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAR of the coils while doing this!
Swap injectors on good and bad cylinders and see of the problem moves.
Do a vac test to check for engine related causes. A leakdown test is also a good idea.