Mystery Symptoms

[letemlaf]

My gf brought home her 2003 accent (man) complaining of a vibrating and a little power loss.

The first thing i noticed was a chuffing noise coming from the exhaust.

I took out each of the 4 spark plugs and they were covered in soot so i cleaned them up again, then put a spark plug in each of the lead and held it against some steel to make sure each lead was generating a spark. They all were but they were a weaker yellow rather than blue.

So i took the car from a drive and found the problem was still there. Whats actually happening is that around 1500rpm in neutral the car vibrates fairly violently so it was a little difficult reversing out of the driveway and there was a good smell of petrol in the air.

While driving the car seems to only have a minor power loss and in the higher rpm it is much less noticable.

I then decided to remove a lead from each cylinder then drive a little to see which cylinder was playing up.

cyl 1 = slightly less power (than with all 4 connected)

cyl 2 = significantly less power

cyl 3 = almost no difference in power

cyl 4 = completely undrivable

Im guessing that the valve in cyl 3 or possibly cyl 1 is not sealing properly causing these symptoms.

any other suggestions from these symptons?

cheers!

[R33S2]

cyl 1 & 3, were they all black or some blacker/sootier? Injector clean? but truely I have no idea.