"New" V8q 5-speed, Part 2: the request for help (also long)

[ekellock@juno.com]

Going into the holiday weekend, the car was running pretty well.  I spent
Sat morning washing it and was amazed how beautiful it is when clean.  I
tinkered a bit, taking off the top cover/air cleaner and just looking
around some.

Also, I found many leaves in the cowl area and thought I could spray them
out with the hose but ended up filling the cowl with water.  When I drove
away from the car washing area, the HVAC blower was spinning in water.  I
went to a parking lot and turned 2 or 3 full circles to make sure the
water made it over to the drain that was working.

So far so good.  Car is clean and running well enough.  I changed the oil
with Castrol semi-synth 20w50 and left the filter since this will be an
intermediate fill just to get rid of the winter thin-as-water fill.  

Sunday morning I decided to wash the engine.  As I have done with all my
other cars, I sprayed on Simple Green liberally and hose it off with the
hose.  I wasn't surprised that it ran a bit poorly when I started it
afterwards.  The problem is, it still isn't right as off just an hour
ago.  So, I've obviously gotten water in somewhere.  Or have I?....

Things I've done so far:
-- Sunday afternoon:
- pulled spark plug covers on each bank
- pulled each plug wire and plug.  Found moisture in only one hole; the
rearmost passenger side.
- cleaned and checked gap on all plugs.  3 of 8 were too wide.  All are
now in spec at about .035 inch.  (spec is .028 to .035)
- The plug that was in the hole with the water had some corrosion on the
tip that the plug wire attaches to.  I used some sand paper to remove
that.
- Plugs were correct type according to manual, but appeared to be
somewhat old.
- Pulled and reconnected every electical plug I could find and access.  I
sprayed each with some electrical contact cleaner.  I found no moisture
in any though.

-- Monday:
- Pulled lower intake box, found throttle cable finally.  I now can
achieve full throttle
- Found vacuum hose pretty much unattached.  There's a hose that goes
between each side of the V.  It had been replaced in the past, but was
cut about an inch too short and just plain didn't fit.  I found bailing
wire and electical tape kludged in there.  Bought another piece of hose
and some small clamps to fix it with. 
- Found and cleaned some more electrical connectors, which were
previously hidden by lower intake box.

Tonight:
- Pulled all intake plumbing again.  I'm getting very good at this.
- removed and cleaned each distributor cap. 
- found lots of crud and _very_ corroded contacts, but no apparent
moisture.
- cleaned everything and used some fine sand paper to remove corrosion on
the contacts, including the rotor tip
- also pulled and reseated each plug wire at the cap end.

After all this, the engine still misfires under even the slightest load. 
It feels very much like a weak ignition problem.  
Thoughts:
- still got some moisture somewhere?
- plugs looked worn and some were pretty cruddy.  I did regap 3 of them
so that's something that I changed.  
- it feels like a single cylinder is misfiring, but not sure.  Could it
be a bad plug?  Maybe the one with the corroded plug wire electrode?
- it does feel a little better each time i play with it since I'm fixing
other stuff along the way, but it still runs noticeably worse than before
I washed the engine.
- the OXS is toast, but again, that hasn't changed based on the wash.
- two of the large screws that hold the top cover on the filter box are
missing, one long and one short.  I check and those holes do not go into
or through the intake air path, but could I have some moisture, _still_,
in the intake tract somewhere?
- I can tell this thing wants to run, but as soon as I crowd the throttle
some, it starts misfiring and stumbling.  It'll run up through the rev
range though.  I'm not doing full throttle bursts, but holding it in a
lower gear and letting the revs build.  
- this behavior seems to be a bit more pronounced when its warmed up,
i.e. less pronounced when "cold".  
- could this be a mixture thing, ala the thermostat?  cleaning the engine
couldn't have changed that though, could it?
- could I have some moisture down in some wiring somewhere else, like
down in the harness, near the ECU?
- could I have fried the OXS, even though it was toast, could it be
really shorted out now or something?

This is quite a little mess I've gotten myself into..

Thanks in advance.

Ed Kellock
Greenville, SC  USA
91 V8q 5-speed
87 Coupe GT
91 200q Avant, in limbo

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