Excessive shaking
 

This morning when I was on my way to work I started my car and it delayed on the start after I let off the key and while at idle it shakes really heavy. It accelerates really slow and when I hit about 35 it starts lurching and my service engine light flashes. It also smells like there is some kind of unburnt fuel making it threw the engine. It doesn't smell so bad that you can smell it in the car but when you are standing near the engine you can smell it and you can really smell it when you're near the exhaust. I was thinking it could be a few different things, but I want your guy's opinions too. It could be fouled plugs, plugged catalitic converter, blown exhaust, bad sensors, or bad fuel injector(s). My car does need new plugs so I'm not going to drive it until tomorrow morning when I go to my uncle's shop to change the plugs. I'm hoping that fixes atleast some of the problem because that's my only form of transportation and school starts up next week. Any of you guys had the same problem or know what it is? '99 V6 automatic.

Dead cylinder...maybe cause of a fouled plug...or coil pack if you have them.

one way to check for a bad injector or dead cylinder.

Start your car and just let it idle. then while it's running, disconnect the #1 fuel injector, if the car stumbles, then reconnect it and that cylinder and fuel injector is good. Keep doing that to each fuel injector and if you come to one that doesn't stumble when you disconnect it, the fuel injector or cylinder is dead. Since you can smell the fuel really bad, it's dumping into the cylinder and not igniting. And the engine light is flashing, that means something is F**ked.

To me, yeah a dead cylinder or maybe 2. The 4.6 valves are super sensitive to heat and it's not hard to burn your valves up. Hopefully it's not the piston or anything else internal.
Has your car been running hot or anything lately?

Yea that pretty much sucks d*ck because I'm broke at the moment. I'm hoping my uncles can hook me up with a fuel injector real cheap if that's the problem.

Man-o-man what a day. Wednesday morning I was changing the spark plugs and found the problem. One of the spark plug wires was touching the manifold and it fried the wire. Last time I changed wires I re-routed 'em because they were routed around the back of the engine and that was a bitch to change. I still put new plugs in, replaced the wire, started her up and rev'ed it up and she purrs like a kitten. I was happy as hell when I found out I wasn't going to have to buy new injectors.

Later that day though I got caught going 76 in a 55 so that pretty much put an end to my euphoria. I don't know how much the ticket is going to be yet because since I'm a minor, I'm required by law to appear in court and because I was going 20 MPH over the spead limit I have a good chance of getting my license taken away. I really didn't realize how fast I was going because it was out on the road in the middle of nowhere and there wasn't anyone in front of me for miles so I didn't really notice how fast I was going until I looked at my speedometer. The cop was driving the other way down the road and he was tailgating this trucks ass so bad, I didn't even see him until he was about 25 ft. in front of me. ****in' troopers here are assholes too

you fix it?

often times a broke motor mount or bad harmonic balence will cause shaking...

and you most certainly could be running on less then 6 clys... you would really notice that... lack of performance as well as terrible MPG

a clogged cat will give a scent of "rotten eggs"

I have a problem similar to this, It has all the same symptoms as yours but it doesn’t do it all the time. The only time's it has happend I was driveing above 75mph, and once when I was crusing in 4th gear at sorda a high rpm for awhile. When it does it, the SES light will blink, I'll let off the throttle then after a few seconds of coasting the engine will go back to normal and the SES light will go off. I have no clue what's causing it.