failing disty or something else???

[mikeinaus]

ive got a weird problem which is kind of making me think its my disty but im not sure.

recent work ive done to the car:
timing belt/ pullies/water pump
power steering pump
alternator
friction gear springs
valve cover/intake/throttle body gaskets
new set of used injectors

also one thing to note is one of the wires has broken off of my knock sensor at the plug so this may be the cause or contributing to it. i also removed my old alarm and installed a viper 5901 remote start on thursday and i started having this problem last night. im wondering if a loose connection with the remote start may be causing this?

now on to the problem...
the car starts, runs, and drives fine. if i turn the car off then turn it back on 5 min later its fine. if i let the car sit for a short period of time like 30min it will start but one of the cylinders wont be firing and it idles at like 500 and sounds like a tractor with quite a strong vibration. it will do this for a short period of time, anywhere from 30seconds to 2-3minutes then continues to drive normally. i havnt been able to isolate it to a cylinder as the car can bearly idle and pulling a plug usually makes the car die instantly.

possible cause 1:
now out of the 6 injectors i put in a couple weeks ago 1 was dead out of the box and i threw in one of my old ones. is it possible one of the other ones is on its last legs and causing this? last night was the first time ive parked and restarted the car within a short period of time so this problem may have existed since i threw them in. i should also note that the car starts and runs fine from cold, or if i start it within a few minutes of turning it off.

possible cause 2:
i know with the knock sensor unplugged the car has no idea whats going on with fuel mixture and resorts to a base rich map. could this cause one of the cylinders to not fire for a short period of time?

possible cause 3:
maybe there is a loose connection in my ignition somewhere from when i installed the remote start? i dont think this is likely as banging around the alarm and wiggling all the wires underneath that i touched doesn't recreate the problem, nor does this affect idle in any way.

any ideas people?

[Sleeper6]

First off start with what you know is broken and fix your knock sensor. Second pulling a single plug lead shouldnt cause the car to die just run very rough, so you might possibly have something else altogether going on. Also are all your vacuum lines hooked up on the rear of the intake done properly as that may cause the car to die off right there.

[mikeinaus]

well, im fairly confident my knock sensor isnt working even before the connection broke. ive got threw 1/4 tank of gas with it unplugged and im getting the same, if not better mileage then i was with it plugged in, however the car doesnt have a very strong pull with it unplugged. im going to be placing an order for a new one sometime next week. i just went for a quick drive to the store and back. the problem is getting worse. this time the car was off for maybe 5 min and it was doing it.

i know the car shouldnt stall with 1 wire unplugged, however the problem is its only running on 5 cylinders when the problem is happening, unplugging one would make the car run on 4 unless i get lucky. the problem started last night when i was at work, i have tonight off so ill play around with it a bit more. ill have a look for my other disty tomorrow and throw it in and see if it helps.

[Pritchett]

The knock sensor has nothing to do with fuel mixture, its for the ignition timing and detects for ping or knock and retards your timing to prevent your engine from damaging itself. Your fuel mixture is what your O2 sensors monitor.

Back when one of my plug wire boots were cracked (K8), it would only run on 5, and it was terrible...I had to fan the clutch on slight hills(stop signs/red lights) and it had a very very noticeable lack of power, so much that it was completely gutless. It was only intermittent and would happen mostly while i was driving.

[mikeinaus]

my plugs and wires are only a few months old so i doubt its that. i know the knock sensor doesnt affect air fuel, but the ecu will advance timing until it detects knock then backs it off again. the ecu continues this cycle the entire time the engine is running. if theres no knock sensor the computer wont advance the timing in fear of knock and run a rich mixture to be safe. i have a feeling my sensor was detecting false knock causing the computer to retard the timing. i was going to confirm this by unplugging the sensor but the corroded wires beat me to it. but my over fueling issue isnt whats concerning me at this point. im hoping its just the disty. im also planning on cleaning my old injectors and throwing them back in when i hook up my egr to my curved neck...