ok just rebuilt the motor new piston rings, crower stage 2 cams, head gasket, timing belt, stage 2 pnp, crower valve springs,udp, header, full exhaust, apexi safc.... im gettin a code for cylinder one misfire but the car seems like it runs fine. i mean it idles kinda rough and it only misfires when its idling...also when i gets warm it will spit and sputter and rpms will just drop to zero and the engine will shut off....the only other codes i get is for evap leak detection and no tcm detected...thats because i used a ecu from a 98 auto avenger...any in put would help i cant drive it like it is cause i just keep gettin stranded....also when i let it cool down after it shuts off it will run fine until it gets hot again....

follow a basic diagnostic tree...

with car running remove cylinder #1 does cars idle change? do you hear and or see spark?

if no to seeing spark you have a bad wire or coil, if you have or see spark move on...

next step if you have spark, unplug cylinder #1 fuel injector, does idle change... if your idle changes you have injector fire if it doesn't you have either a bad injector or no injector pulse signal from pcm. A better test would be to install a noide light into harness however you prolly dont have one of those.

third step, if you have spark and injector pulse, check compression.

do those simple steps first.

Suspicion of incorrect timing. Are you positive that all your marks lined up?

yeah the timing was on....but i was using adjustable cam gears and couldnt get them in time....so i put the stock gears back on and put it in time.....i might of bent some valves....would bent valves cause real bad compression?

took the head of cant really tell if any of the valves are bent....but piston one was shiny as fuck and the other three pistons had black soot on them so what does shiny as fuck mean...any one

sounds to me like that cylinder isnt getting any spark. the black "soot" on those 3 cylinders is a result of the explosion from the spark taking place. a cylinder not having any of the burnt look to it would be a result of no spark.

No fire in cylinder one.

Just pour water into exhaust ports and wait and see if the water leaks through. If it does then you don't have a good seal at the face of the valves. Then do the same for the intakes.

well i poured the water into the ports and no water came out....so im guessing that they are good....took out piston one and it was covered with gas....matter of fact the oil smelled like gas bad....could i have washed out the piston rings with gas....

which brings us back to no spark....

yeah i just changed the brand new piston rings i put in it bc i had gotten terrible compression tests cylinder 1 was at 90 and i forget what 2 and 3 were but they werent good the only good one was piston 4 so i hope that this fixes the problem....

could the cam magnet cause the cam sensor to send the wrong signal to the ecu causing a cylinder not to fire and is there a certain way that the cam magnet has to go in

Re-do your timing.

ok update, i just took the head off and put another head on with the crower springs thought that maybe the valves were bad.....car still has cylinder one misfire...timing is right on, also did a compression test and i get 40 on cyl 1 and 40 on cyl 2 the other two are at 200 and i put two new sets of piston rings on them....thing is though it only misfires when im around 2000 rpm and at idle sometimes but when im goin down the road it feels like all my cylinders are running right...idk what to do now...i have tore this engine apart 4 times and i want the fifth to be the last ha....lookin for any input thanks

damn, I would have repliced the plug wires long before I considered taking off the head. at the very least switched the wiring from cylinders 1 and 4 to see if the misfire moved to cylinder 4

oh i have replace that stuff new plugs wires and coil still get cyl 1 misfire....why dont i get cyl 2 misfire if both compression tests show 40 psi...