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Lq4 6.0 misfire troubleshooting

tac1

Red Skull Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2020
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2142
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I bought a cheap 2001 2500hd truck a couple weeks back think of using it as a winter beater and maybe swap donor down the road. Truck has plenty of issues, the main one being a cylinder #4 PO304 misfire with flashing check engine light.

Truck is 100% stock 252k miles lq4 6.0/Nv4500 (older 3/4 ton so no afm/dod junk on it)

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PO 304 is the only code shown, the truck has a miss, less noticeable at idle but pretty clear under load in 4/5th gear. I've had a few of these trucks. here is what I tried so far in troubleshooting.

1) Verified had spark on #4 with a spark tester

2) Swap coil, spark plug, and plug wire from #4 to #2 = Misfire stayed on #4

3) Friend brought over a fancy scan tool and we ran a test that pulsed the injectors while you watched the fuel pressure drop on a manual gage. All injector except #4 were dropping 11-12 psi, #4 was only dropping 4-5psi. I though we found the answer, I checked injector wiring with a noid light all seemed ok. Fuel pressure was good we did find the fuel pressure regulator was shot.

I intended to swap injectors on #2 & 4 to see what happens but when I pulled the rail several injector tips and the top part with the little screen fell apart, so I put in 4 reman injectors on the passenger side bank. To fish the injector tips off the top of the valves I pulled the intake and put new gaskets on it. I cleaned and looked at the fuel rail, everything looked fine

Back together truck still has a #4 misfire, screen shot after a short drive.

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4) I ran a compression test, surprised to find 175-180 psi on all 8 cylinders

5) Ran a leak down test on #2 and #4 both showed really good results ~5% on my cheap tester I'm not sure I trust but I did not hear any air leaking on the intake or exhaust.

6) Pulled the valve cover on the passenger bank. No broken valve springs, rocker arms are tight (lashed), and I took a crude min max rocker arm measurement on 2,4,6 intake and exhaust rocker arms to check cam lift. All were with in a few thousands.

7) Last ditch to rule out electronics I checked resistance on the coil connectors and injector plug push pull and wiggling on the harness, checked all the pins, and even overlaid the signal wires of the coil and injector directly from the ecm connector. No change

I'm kind of lost at this point. Truck is drivable and I have a cheap scan tool or toque pro to monitor/try any suggestions. Truck is not really needed so I'm not wanting to throw a bunch of money at it currently.
 
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My wrench suggested camshaft could be the problem..

I have the same engine in a 07 Silverado classic, with same constant misfire issue.

Have changed all coils, new plugs, plug wires..

All external things and nothing solves it.

Am threatening engine changeout.

Have done nothing with injectors however.
 
My wrench suggested camshaft could be the problem..

My other truck (ly6 6.0) originally had a camshaft issue caused by a bad lifter, but it was pretty obvious when you took off the valve cover. rocker arm was loose and it was barely trying to open the valve
 
Check the coil harness, I just pulled a brittle harness of my 05 5.3 that cracked as soon as I unplugged the coils. Replacements for $70 ea for both sides on Amazon.
 
Im assuming the rocker arm studs are pressed in, head not machined and tapped for studs.

Hopefully I'm wrong.

My other truck (ly6 6.0) originally had a camshaft issue caused by a bad lifter, but it was pretty obvious when you took off the valve cover. rocker arm was loose and it was barely trying to open the valve
 
Does your friend have a scan tool that can 2 way comms? Might try a crank relearn aka case learn.
 
Hopefully yes, will find out asap.
 
Does your friend have a scan tool that can 2 way comms? Might try a crank relearn aka case learn.

Yeah we tried the crank relearn procedure in his autel scanner. The procedure seemed to work but it didn't change anything.
 
Mine had a stupid miss like that not sure on the codes, ended up being the Intake was leaking.

Yeah the intake can cause a bunch of weird codes, I had to do the intake after pulling it to chase the injector tips that fell off into the cylinders when I pulled the fuel rail. It didn't fix the misfire but it did force me to clean everything up and I found the rubber part between the maf sensor and throttle body was ripped.

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Had a breakthrough last night. I spoke to a couple people yesterday that were pretty knowledge able on the early ls engines, they both said the misfire diagnostics back in that time were more of a guess than an exact science. Both said look at the cylinders in the firing order (1-8-7-2-6-5-4-3) before and after #4 and repeat the same tests I did for #4.

Sure enough the #3 coil fixed the entire problem. I should have just parts cannoned 8 used coils at it from the spare shelf, but I found the other issues above and the truck runs great.

Here is the misfire counter history from a 20 mile drive to take out trash this morning.

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