Hey guys, check this out:

4g63 with a rough idle (sounds like it has cams), with roughness anywhere up to 3000 rpms, and above 3000 rpms runs smooth.

Sounds like the typical "spark plugs/plug wires/fuel filter" scenario, right?

Well, plugs were changed first. Idle slightly improves. A day or so later, begins idling even worse and throws a CEL (P0304 -cylinder 4 misfire).

Next, change to new spark plug wires. No improvement.

Take out the new plug, here is what it looks like:

old plugs are on the left, new plugs 3 and 4 are on right. As you can see, plug 4 is very fouled up (approximately 100 miles on new plug, per the driver of the car) SORRY at the pic size, I thought I had my cam set for VGA resolution

So my thinking at this point is, perhaps the old 4th plug wire was bad, so it fouled the old plug, and now fouled up the new plug, and that's the reason the new wires didn't help. So I put one of the old non-fouled plugs into cylinder 4. no improvement, car still sounds like it has cams.

I disconnected wire 4 frome the plug to see if she would idle the same horrible way. There is wicked arcing from the ignition coil where the plug inserts - don't know if this is normal or not (never seen my 420a do that). Every wire does the same thing if unplugged from the spark plug.

I don't think it's a plugged fuel injector, because that would mean that the cylinder would get less fuel/no fuel, and hence the plug would not be black. correct?

Unfortunately, I don't have my ohmmeter on me to check the coils at the moment. anyone have ideas? if it's not the plugs, and not the wires, then it's the coil pack. I'm gonna kill this car if it ends up being some freakish thing like a CAS or something.

2gnt: '99 RS-T, killed by a toyota, pending rebuild...
Daily: Volt
Daily #2: '99 EVG ebike- STOLEN by PEDRO