Starting Problems

[drbowlofjelly]

Hi,

I recently had a problem with my '97 bird (3.8L). It seemed to misfire at idle. About 2 years ago I put in Bosch platinum +4 in. I've heard other people having problems with them and assumed this was the case. Then a couple of days ago it was misfiring so bad I had to take action. I said F-it and bought a OBD2 reader from autozone. It read P0300-multi misfires. I tested the first coil and had secondary resistance. But the second one didn't. Though the second coil had primary resistance. I replaced the second coil and everything is running good. After all that my question is 'starting on the first crank.' Whenever I start my car almost always it won't start on the first crank. But it will always fire on the second crank. I always thought it was the +4 plugs. Now I have plain Bosch platniums and new Bosch wires. Anyone have any direction were to start? I'm getting no codes now. I changed out just one of the coils. Should I change out the other 2? They both showed secondary resistance. Any ideas?

Randy

[John D.]

Have you changed your fuel filter lately. Could be your fuel pump isn't pressurizing the system well enough too. It sounds like you've done some good ignition troubleshooting, that's why I'm leaning more towards fuel delivery issues.

[BillyCobin]

I had random misfires + hard start, turned out to be the fuel pressure regulator.

[drbowlofjelly]

I bought a new fuel filter for the ****s and giggles of it when I bought the coils. But I just replaced the filter about 1-1/2 years ago. So I decided not to put it in yet. Is there a way to test the fuel pressure regulator? I'm going to call the parts store and see how much one is. If it's cheap enough I'm just going to replace it.