Misfire help!!!! Options

[sasrunner]

Thank you in advance!!! And sorry for the long 1st post!! My wife and I bought a 97 Celica St 7A-FE about 3 months ago for a little next to nothing. The car needed an alternator battery and all the maintenance stuff done to it(timing belt, water pump, plugs, plug wires cap and rotor, fuel filter, all new fluids) It had a stumble when we got it. Fiqured it needed the stuff mentioned and maybe some other stuff. So I took it to a Toyota mechanic friend who looked it over and diid some other work on it. He replaced the egr, egr vsv and modulator. Removed the intake plenum cover and decarboned the runners and passages. He also did a compression test, check valve clearance, fuel pressure, timing,valve timming, replaced and adjusted the TPS, cleaned the IAC valve and replaced #2 and #3 injector.Replaced #1 O2 sensor. All the parts replaced are Toyota OE except the injectors. They're NAPA remans. The car still misses when in gear and under load. It's always cylinder #3. We swapped injectors around the see if the miss moved. It didn't. The temperature sensor is in spec also. The plugs are normal grey after 1000 miles. The antifreeze is completely full. Also replaced the coil. He is going to parts warrenty the plug wires for me just in case I got a bad set from Toyota, which I doubt. I pulled the exhaust manifold this evening just to see if there was anything in the exhaust port. He is at a loss as I am as well. I suggested a fuel pump, but he said that it shouldn't be it as the miss is isolated to one cylinder. His suggestion is to replace the ecm with a used one to see if maybe the injector signal is getting screwd-up somehow. If it's still there he said we're pulling the head. Maybe be a funky valve or something wrong with the seat. He did say he wanted the check the valve springs before he jerked the head off. All in all it ain't that bad of miss. But my wifes driving it to save on gas and as of right now we got a total of $1500(including the car) and beer in it. Let me know if we're missing anything. All help is appreciated!!!

This post has been edited by sasrunner: Jul 31, 2013 - 9:38 PM

[Smaay]

double check the valve clearance. I had a 7A-FE come to me with a misfire in Cylinder 2. i changed the shim to bring it in spec, it ran fine for about 4 months and the misfire came back. I re-checked the clearance and it was tight again. I took off the head and replaced the valve. it was dishing really bad. new valve fixed the problem.

[sasrunner]

double check the valve clearance. I had a 7A-FE come to me with a misfire in Cylinder 2. i changed the shim to bring it in spec, it ran fine for about 4 months and the misfire came back. I re-checked the clearance and it was tight again. I took off the head and replaced the valve. it was dishing really bad. new valve fixed the problem.

Thanks man!!! I spoke with him earlier this evening and he said the same round about thing. He said he actually checked them with car warmed-up and should have done it cold. He said he was used to doing 22r's when they're hot and never thought twice when he did our car. So maybe and hopefully that's it. It's weird!! It's not like the car has a dead hole, it just occasionally stumbles in gear at idle. We're planning to drop it at the dealer he works at tommorow evening and let him work on it Saturday sometime. I'll post progress or failure.