Ok, guys looking for some help. I have had my car over 17 years. Have done all the reliability mods and and more including having the engine rebuilt about 25K ago. It has been running like a dream. I had changed the spark plugs about 1000 miles ago. Decided to change the spark plug wires as a preventative maintenance using stock NGK wires. Removed the strut brace, intake elbow, oil filter neck and throttle body to get to the coils located in the stock location under the intake manifold. Reassembled everything and started her up. She ran rough and rich like one plug was not firing. My AFR gauge showed a rich mix and the smoke smelled rich too. I checked the wiring order and it was correct. Found the map sensor hose was torn (probably from me working near it) and replaced it. Still ran rough. Not getting full power until revs above 4500. Decided to remove everything and re-seat the plug wires at the coils in case they were not making good contact. I visually checked the coils and there is no corrosion in the contacts. Checked the check valve on the map sensor and noticed it was not working and replace it. Now it seems to run better but after idling at 1700 rpms for about 30 seconds the just dies completely. I can start it up again and it then it dies after a 5 seconds.

How can replacing a set of plug wires lead to all of this? Like I said it was running perfectly before changing the wires. So because of that I do not suspect my compression, my plugs, my fuel, my fuel pump or fuel injectors. I am beginning to think I might have a bad set of wires.

 

That's not a check valve at the map sensor. It's a filter. Map on a turbo car needs to see negative and positive pressure, there will never be a check valve at the map sensor.

you can check your plug wires with a multimeter to see if you got a boof set out the box. Set it to ohms and stick a probe on each end. I forget the allowable amount of resistance per foot but it's really low. Also, it may sound weird but actually pull your spark plugs out. I was in this very similar situation not long ago. I changed the plug wires and put brand new plugs at the same time and then started having issues with my turbo glowing red under almost no load. Turned out the shell on one of my plugs had actually cracked pretty bad. The issue is that looking at it installed, you can't tell. It's not until I put the socket on it that a peice of it broke off.

Also make sure you put the vacuum line for the map sensor on an actual vacuum port. There's a peg very near where the port is and it's easy to put the hose on it instead of where it goes. Also make sure that you didn't accidentally damage your tps somehow. And the plugs on the coil packs. The white black and blue plug, make sure those are in the correct order..... if you took them off. I don't remember what the order is but if you look up a picture of the coil packs, you should see what it is installed.

if the car ran fine before and it was just a simple wire swap with the associated accessibility removals then whatever the problem is, is minor. Gotta be something being overlooked.

 

Thanks for you input CR-REX. I am going to check the resistance on the old wires I pulled off. I might have to put the old set back on!
Thanks for the info on the map sensor filter, I will switch the old filter back on the map sensor. It had an arrow on it so I thought it might be a bad check valve.
The map sensor is on a vacuum port. I never pulled it off to change the wires and I see it is still attached to the manifold.

 

The coil harness can get brittle and it's right in that area where you were. Loose connector or broken wire maybe? I've heard of the grounds breaking or having issues but I'm not certain what specific issues a bad harness will cause. IIRC they're not super expensive (~$100) and if it's the original one to the car it's probably pretty crispy. I think they were also updated some years ago for having grounding problems. Just a thought.
Jim