Since I last posted

I pulled the spark plug and plugged it in to the coil pack, laid it on top of the motor and started the car, spark plug sparked the whole time solid. While I am not sure how “strong” the spark should be, it was a consistent little blue line at the electrode.

I pulled the connector off the injector and it has 11.87 volts when the key is on to the positive side. I tested the other one next to it and it had the same voltage.

I pulled the valve cover and inspected the lifter/lobes and the springs. Hoping I would find something just “laying” there. I had my wife crank the car as I watched. The valves all seemed to push open and return following the cam lobe as best as I can tell. I saw nothing visually that stuck, or warranted any further concern.

What I know so far is it seems I have spark, the fuel injector is getting voltage, and I repeated the compression check. This time I only got around 150 per cylinder, then I remembered when I did it this early AM the engine was cold. It is warmed up now, nevertheless none of them deviated from one another by over 5%.

I did a wet compression test and it made no difference.

Thoughts on this?

 

I’m off to harbor freight to see if they have a leak down tester. From what I google, good compression does not always tell the full story.

To be continued,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

At least it’s been inspected and confirmed good.
Now it’s a matter of putting it all back together, you have confirmed timing is correct, there is spark, fuel, compression and the valves are opening and closing.
I wouldn’t drive it from coast to coast , but drive it for a week. Perhaps a full 30 minutes battery lobotomy will clear all the sensors and the problem.
It really can’t hurt, seeing as you have confirmed all is operating as it should be.

 

But the funny thing is, cylinder 3 was only intermittently cutting out, even this morning. I could clear the codes and the car seemed to run fine for awhile (till it was warm). I don’t know what I have done, but its a dead cylinder all the time now. Very bizarre indeed

 

Dead? Cylinder, then it has to be wiring problems, like a broken wire that intermittently touches after warming up, but disconnects with vibration!

 

Yes, when I remove the coil plug harness connector on that cylinder it makes no change. That cylinder is not working.

harbor freight discontinued the leak down tester for $25, the next one they had was $80. I passed on it for now. On my way home, defeated.

my thought is, since the plug is clean, it may be the injector losing power. That would explain,,, getting compression, getting spark, but if there is no fuel going into the cylinder. There will be nothing to ignite. The spark plug was a little more brown that the other 3 that were more gray the second time I pulled them today.,

If you think it is a wiring problem I need to keep looking at that possibility. I can’t keep throwing money at this thing. I need a good leak down tester but not right now if I can get away with it. If anyone thinks it’s still possible I need to do a leak down tester, I will either order a cheap one on Amazon or go to oreillys and see if they have a loaner.

open for any advice from anyone, anywhere.

 

I have an idea, send hellshotrod a PM with your HHR’s details, possibly he has a wire harness for the injectors, replacing your possible damaged wire harness. It is plausible this could resolve your issue.

Or carefully test all those wires one at a time with a meter
I believe leak down kits are available at your local parts palaces at their tool loaner desk.

Chin up , it’s going to take some time but you’ll get this fixed.

 

If compression is good, I wouldn't worry about a leak down yet. You will need a decent air compressor for a leak down test.

 

I will see if he has the wiring harness. In the meantime, I was going to try to run a few tests.

I found this diagram, it should be close to the HHR. My pink pink/black wire on injector #3 coincides with that chart. 2 wires coming from the ECM to the injector.

The pink one is one wire into the injector connector, the pink/black one is the other wire.

I am not certain how these injectors work. It looks like the pink one gets constant voltage, and the pink/black one is unknown but they both come from the ECM. Are they both supposed to get voltage? Or does it work off of a ground? My thought was to just leave that injector unplugged since that cylinder isn’t working anyway and measure voltage at the connector while the car is running. However, I am not 100 percent sure if both of these wires are supposed to get a constant voltage or if one of them acts as a ground. Does anyone know?

 

This thread is getting too long to remember, did you try swapping positions of the injectors?