Lagging 96 Tacoma

I have a 96 Tacoma I bought for my son. There is a misfire that is eating my lunch.

When it runs at idle I really don't detect a problem. When driving under load,especially at lower rpm, it misses especially when shifting to 2nd and it has a hard time getting going. Once the rpm get up, it is ok, but some times there is a delicate mixture of clutch and throttle.to get the rpm up so it will go.

My question is where do I need to start looking? I've changed the plugs and distributor cap, as well as the injectors, to no success. I am starting to lean towards a bad cylinder or valve, but haven't gotten a compression tester yet. Is there something I should look at first?

The details are a 96 Tacoma with 2.7 and 5 speed manual transmission with about 220k miles. It has a misfire code on cylinder 2 (can't remember what the number is).

For the guy that will say do a search, I have. Don't mistake my incompetence for laziness.

Thanks in advance.

 

Try swapping a spark plug wire. Take the one entirely off #3 and put it on #2. Replace #3 with #2. If the misfire goes to #3, now you know the wires are bad.

Otherwise maybe your valve lash needs adjustment. Could be leaking compression out. Leak down tester will narrow this down better. You can look up how to measure lash between the bucket and cam. If it's not in spec it's atleast one of your problems.

Good luck.

 

thanks. I will try this.

 

How long have you driven the truck since buying it till the miss started?

I would have went with new wires with the plugs. Doing the catch up maintenance.

I wonder if the valves were ever adjusted??

after switching wires a leak down test would be a good move.