My 02 Kalahari is trying to be a major PITA right now. I don't drive it as much as I used to, but I always run it, check the battery, and drive it when I can.

Well the other day I crank it up, and I could tell something wasn't right as the idle was rough and it normally idles as smooth as glass. I looked at my Scangauge II and I had a pending P0300 & P0307. I turned it off, checked the plug wire and it fell apart in my hand. No biggie I have a trail spare kit with a a new set of cheap wires. Slap it & on and same thing.. Pull the plug to find the previous owner slapped some Bosch x2's in there. BINGO I said to myself as I've learned from experience those plugs suck!! Slap in a new trail spare NGK & I still have P0300 & P0307...... Next step will be a brand new spare coil pack, and if that doesn't fix it I may swap out the fuel injector. I'm thinking a fuel injector as it's not bad at idle. It's when it needs more fuel I get the faults and flashing CEL.

It idles fine when the AC is off with a small miss, AC on & it's worse. Try to drive it and flashing CEL. So I parked it, the spark plug I pulled looked normal with no appearance of a possible coolant jacket problem with the #7 cylinder.

I gotta get it fixed!!!

 

...thanks Best4x4 for your input! ...your symptoms and findings are more along the lines of mine, although my issue is with #8. Didn't have spare wires, so decided to swap them (#8 with #7), but #7 broke and had to make a run to AAP and get a set from them; connected the new wire but the problem is still there. Don't have an extra plug, so I'll swap again #8 with any other; if prob persists, I'm planning on swapping coils, before deciding to buy a new pair (although pricing is acceptable).

I have to agree with you, since I'v done the swapping, fault is still there, but once you press the pedal to accelerate hard, it startles more and SES light blinks and goes solid. And yes, I've thought it could be gas related as well.

Anyways, will swap plugs and and so on a so forth, trying to rule things out. ;-]#

 

...I feel your pain ...I'm 260 and size 44, imagine that laid over a piece of cardboard over the engine ...my hands still hurt from all the work! ...if you won't remove the intake, you better remove the aluminum pipe for that connects the SAI, you'll have more room to work, although not sure if enough clearance for the coil packs to make it out. ;-]#

 

02 Kalahari is back on the road again! I had some spare time this evening after work so I tore it down. Removed all the old wires & the coil pack. Slapped in the new coil pack I had in my shop, some new Kingsborne 7mm spark plug wires, and 8 Autolite Double Platinum Plugs (got 16 for free so I had em in my trail spares box), put it all back together, fired it up and BINGO no more P0300 or P0307. I guess 227K out of the original coil pack isn't bad lol.

It was just weird to me that only cylinder 7 was the one going nuts.... It has a lot more get up n go so I'm sure that original coil pack just wasn't producing a hot enough spark anymore. So change out your coil pack, wires, and plugs. Whole job on my non SAI D2 was 3hr start to finish. Last time I did a coil pack was on an SAI Equipped D2 and it took me much longer... So glad both my D2's don't have SAI!

 

...that's great, enjoy the fruits of the labor now! ...before your message came in, I went on CARid and bought a pair of BOSCH coils, with shipping included it all came down to $102, and Kingsborne is sending me a replacement for the wire that broke, so it'll be a couple of days until I can get my issues resolved... hoping I run with the same luck as you. Cheers!

 

The new spare coil I just slapped in wasn't a BOSCH unit. It was $80.00 for the complete assembly & bracket on rock auto like over a year ago. I've had the wires for probably 6 months. I'll be curious to see how the Kingsborne wires hold up vs say some STI wires.

hardest part of the whole job is getting the coil pack screws at the bottom out. I remove the top ones, then loosen the bottom ones and leave just enough thread so the bolts don't fall out, but enough that the coil pack can kinda flop backwards. That allows you to remove the intake with no issues. Then remove the wires from the coil packs and it'll come right out vs trying to fight with it if the wires are still on it.