Engine hesitation with acceleration

hesitation with acceleration

I took my 98 prism to the shop and they told me that my 2nd cylinder was mis firing and when I press the accelerator there is hesitation like it doesnt know what gear its on almost. its not all the time but lets say I am at 40 miles an hour in 5th gear then it will jerk sort of....maybe jerk isnt the best word but thats all I can think of...it tends to usually happen in lower gears but this is a manual transmission and it seems like the transmission doesnt know which gear its in....if anybody could tell me something before I have them fix it I would greatly appreciate it.

try to see if its the engine first, maybe u have a loose spark plug or some faulty wires, rule out the possibility of problems with the engine first

That might be a bad fuel injector, althought I seriously doubt it. How many miles do you have on the car? More importantly, how many miles do your spark plugs have on them? Do you get a check engine light? Are you burning oil?

I would think that it would be either:
1) spark plug (most likely)
2) plug wire (but the 1ZZ-FE doesn't have plug wires, it's direct ignition)
3) the #2 coil pack (these do go bad occasionally)

Mind you, if it WERE the injector, it could be clogged and not spraying ENOUGH fuel. It could also be leaking and spraying TOO MUCH fuel, which causes a thick sooty carbon deposit which will ground the spark out and cause misfire.

Late,
Trav

really?

hmmm....didn't know that. So direct ignition is only 2000+ models, then?

I've been school'd.

Late,
Trav

correct.

this may be out there - esp since you were already told the #2 cyl is misfiring, but check your MAF sensor. I had a very similar problem with my car about 6 months ago and it worried me. Turns out my fucking MAF sensor was loose and not creating an air-tight seal anymore. Once I fixed that, no more issues. It just sounds familiar because mine did the same thing, only it did it in all gears, any time i got on the gas more than say 50% throttle.

98-99's have plug wires.

..unless I have some strange hybrid engine..?