How About a Hamburger in El Centro?

Kim decided to take Friday off so we could go to the desert for a one day banzai trip. The wind had been howling at the desert and we wanted to be the first to make tracks over the new ripples. We got up at 5 am, jumped in our clothes, and took off. We had the trailer with quads hitched up by 5:40, and were fueled up at a gas station down the road by 6 sharp.

Perfect!

Then much ass-hauling up the grades, cruise set to 85, turbo boost coming on and off in a nice rhythm...then 80 miles later, down the grade back to sea level, and onward to El Centro. We were getting close. 14 miles to El Centro the cruise tried to take the truck into boost and the engine shuddered badly. I hit the brake to shut off the cruise and rolled onto the throttle a couple times to see where the problem occured...It was at anything approaching positive pressure. We pulled over, and left the engine running while I checked things out. No "check engine" lights helped us out. Oil pressure, exhaust gas temp, coolant temp, and fuel pressure were all within normal ranges. All I could figure was some kind of misfire from a fouled plug or bad wire.

We hit the road again, cautiously trying to make our way to a local toyota stealership where at least we'd be able to get parts, if we needed them. The "check engine" light finally popped on, and I was lucky to have my code scanner and book with me. It came up error 0136, which was misfire cylinder 6.

We bought a new spark plug and a set of wires and swapped everything out. Still the same problem- sluggish and misfiring at idle and under any amount of boost.

We were starving at this point (it was 10 AM) so we popped into the local Carl's Jr after fitting Sioux with her "don't mess with me i'm a service dog" vest. We ordered hamburgers and fries and considered our options. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the trouble was, even with my friend Jerrod on the cell phone helping me troubleshoot. He raised the dark spectre of a blown head gasket or a cracked head, but the oil level was perfect and there was no oil in the coolant or vice versa.

After lunch, since we were so close, I was tempted to head for Glamis to at least get some riding in, but at the last minute, I pulled u-turn and headed back to San Diego. The possibility of my lovely wife and our dog being stranded with a trailer full of gear was too much to risk. So we high-tailed it home, if you can high-tail while drawing vacuum.

Kim slept a good part of the way, and when we got home I pulled the plugs and did compression checks. All cylinders came within spec. Then on a message board one guy suggested that it might be a bad coil pack. I tested the #3 pack, which wastes spark to the #6 cylinder and sure enough, it was shot. Those packs are a hundred bucks apiece but I happpened to have 3 of them on the spare 3.4 I have sitting in my shop. Ten minutes of wrenching and the Toy was running stronger than ever.

I apologized to Kim and thanked her for going with me to get hamburgers in El Centro.

Now I wonder how much more power the truck might make, now that it's not missing any longer. I may have to come out of retirement for One Last Drag Race.

:)