Alright a little background for you guys to give you a good idea on my issues. I just picked up a 97 Tracer for $1250 for my sister in law today. I was able to talk the guy down from $1900 because of the issues with the car.

1stthing that is a real annoyance is a vibration at idle. Iwas initiallythinking A) It needs a tune up B) vacuum line issue because the idle changes while switching through the vent selections for the heat or C) a possible charging issue because it also bogs down for a moment when the headlights are turned on. I took it to get it smogged today and it passed with flying colors. While there the owner of the shop (very good shop I may add) told me that these cars have quite a few issues with the motor mounts with the first one to go usually being the upper passenger side mount. I am going to pull the plugs and check the resistance in the wires in the next few days to see how good everything looks from that end but was wondering how often you guys have heard of this issue.

2nd the damn thing ate the key and won't let go [8D]. I can shift through all of the gears but it feels as if the detent is not locking in while in park. It's dark now so I didn't get very far with it but I was wondering what the issue is exactly if you guys have seen it around the forum so that I may get straight to the issue rather than fromtrial and error.

3rd I'm planning on doing a tune up, oil change, and tranny fluid change to the car. I was wondering what the best plugs and wires were for this thing. I have no problem sticking with OEM but the wires are a little more expensive than I care to pay formotorcraftand I know better than buying el cheapo wires from my local parts house. Does anyone have any experience with Bosch, MSD, Accel, etc...

Thanks for your time guys.

 

YourIdle vibration could be just about anything from bad motor mounts to low RPM due to a bad sensor like a IAC (Idle air Control) or like you said just in need of a little preventive maintenance (Tune up). Ahhh I see you mentioned Motor mounts already....My bad.

I can't get exact with your ignition tumbler because that could be a worn key tumbler or even a bad key, I have had luck with just spraying in some WD40 or some 3 n 1 spray to help flush out worn parts dust from inside the mechanism, or you just plain need a new Ignition assy.

As far as after market tune up parts, seems you get what you pay for as a vague rule. I have that problem here in Korea as I have to buy all my parts on line and if I get bad parts, my Tbird is down until I get the new parts so I tend to go for the Mid price rather than the lowest.

You know that I am going to look and see if they make, is an adapter for a Multimeter that will make the resistance measurements of spark plug wires more reliable. simply jabbing multimeter leads into the end is both un-reliable for measurement but can also damage the delicate conductor wires. Seems that a cheap break down tester would be a better way to check them because it uses high voltage vs dc current to measure both resistance and dielectric properties.

I think thateven very good Spark plugs are not that expensive so yea...grab some goodones.

I am rambling now, so I will let the next member add some input now.