4.6 L 1997 F150 running on 4 cyl
 

On my way home from fishing this afternoon, my 97 ford pu puked all over. Just started to miss very bad, on the freeway could only get to 40 mph going up a small hill pulling my 15 ft boat. Took it to a mechanic after I got the boat home, he has done good work in the past, but is no longer at the shop I went to. The guy that are there now spent 1.5 hrs this evening trying to figure out what is wrong. Their only analizer is a old looking snap on box about a foot square, didgital, it says the truck is fine but misfiring on #2. They switched plugs with another cylinder and no difference. With further analysis, it has 2 coil packs, one makes no difference if you unplug the wires, the other one if you do the same thing it practically dies on you. So it is only running on 4 cylinders is the concludion. They suspect it may be fuel injection problem, but the test equipment they have to test that is at home, will bring it in tomorrow and test further (this is a very small shop). They don't think it is a coil problem because coil is putting out blue spark if they unplug it(the one that makes no difference when they unplug the plug wires).

I took it there because they could look at it now, other shops in the area have a waiting list, set up appointment for next week. Also, the mechanic I had delt with in the past was very good. OK, other then taking it someplace else, any suggestions on what is wrong? I will be going someplace else if they don't find the problem soon, they had told me they charge a flat 1/2 hr for disgnosis, and when I left told me I was getting my money's worth on this one. We will see. Bud

Took it to a different shop yesterday. #2 had 70 lbs compression, leak down test showed holding no pressure. Time to go shopping for a different truck. Thanks for all the input. Bud