Well, the RS has been sitting in the garage all winter and has not been out since about October. The last time we drove it the silly thing went nuts. My wife drove it to her store one day and went she closed up to come home it wouldn't run right. She said it was missing real bad and smelled terrible.

She had to drive it about 4 miles to get it home. I was gone but my son was here at the house and he said it sounded like a couple of plugs we not firing and the exhaust smellled very bad. He said when he looked under the car the converter appeared to be be glowing cherry red hot. They just let it cool off and then put it in the garage. When I got home a few days later I started it up and could tell it was missing. I just put it back in the garage and said we would get it fixed later.

Well now it is time to get it fixed. I have a trailer and if I can get it loaded I am going to haul it to the repair shop. I have decided to take it to a shop that has the device that hooks to the OBDII port to check it out. I am hoping it is just a coil pack out, not letting it fire on 2 cylinders. I am also hoping that we didn't burn the converter up when it got hot. Maybe is just got hot enough to clean it out real good.

I did mention to the wife that we could get it fixed and sell it but she almost cried! :( I told her we could sell it and pay off the truck but she didn't want to sell her car. LOL

The red colored converter indicates the presence of unburned hydrocarbons, i.e. raw fuel, from incomplete combustion. The engine miss confirms this.

Have your Camaro towed or trailered to a shop for diagnosis and repairs as driving it will cause more damage with the end result being a converter meltdown. You don't mention if you looked under the hood but if the car's been sitting for several months, a couple of possibilities are critters nibbling on wiring or a sulfated battery. Low battery voltage can create operating system problems with anything computer controlled. The engine can, and often will, miss and run poorly and the onset of this is sudden. If mice have decided to take up residence and dine on electrical wiring, you might have coverage under your insurance policy (Comprehensive coverage - damage caused by animal) for the cost of repairs, less your deductible.

I'm betting that the root cause of your present driveability problem is a simple one. Good luck and keep us posted.

Cheers,
Mary Pozzi

Autozone will check the OBDII for free. THEN take it and get it repaired. Was the check engine on steadily or was it flashing?

Update.
The check engine light was flashing and today I started it and it is still flashing. It is a misfire on cylinder 6 according to the scanner I borrowed from work. The code was P0306 misfire cylinder 6. I can tell it is just on one cylinder and it sounds like a plug has gone bad. Now here is the silly question. I am assuming cylinder 6 is the rear cylinder on the right side of the block next to the firewall. How the heck do you get to the plug?? I can take an inspection mirror and see the plug and the back two plugs on the right side look like they have some sort of heat shield on them. I have not a clue as to how to get to them.

This new state of the art modern equipment has gotten me bumfuzzled :o

If I cannot get to the plug then I am going to contact the repair shop and see if they will tow it. The only thing is they do not have a role back wrecker and I am not sure about hooking it up to a regular wrecker. I do have a trailer but it sure would be easier if they could just come and get it.

The car has 80,000+ miles and I am thinking I might as well put new plugs and wires in it anyway. If this was the '69 I'd have it done in about 20 minutes.............:sad:

Just came in from the garage and I still cannot get to the #6 plug. This car has the RS package so the lower trim will not allow me to get my floor jack under the car. I was going to raise it up on jack stands and see if I could get to if from underneath, no dice.

Next question.............the car starts just fine but runs with a miss. The check engine light flashes and the exhaust really stinks. I have never worked on a car without a distributor before and the old way of seeing if a plug was getting fire was to unhook the plug wire and stick a test light in it to see if it will light. I was wondering that if the coil pack is not good then there shouldn't be any fire at the end of the plug wire. If I were to pull #6 plug wire off of the coil pack, could I just stick a test light to the coil to see if it were getting fire?

:o

drive it up on 2x4s and that should allow you to get the jack under it.

I got the RS to the shop today. They are going to start working on it tomorrow and should have it diagnosed to let me know what the problem was. I told them to go ahead and change out the plugs and wires anyway since they were working on it. Now I will have both Camaros up and running again!! :hurray:

Oh, I tried loading it on a trailer and was not able to get it up the ramps. The lower trim would rub the ramps and the front end would hit. I tried pulling it on and backing it on and no go. I just drove it the 5 miles to the shop real slow. I told them to make sure the converter was ok also since I drove it with the miss.

Our '97 is running good again. I just picked it up at the shop and all it needed was a set of plugs and plug wires. The wire for number 6 was bad so I had them just put in all new plugs and wires. I am glad it wasn't anything else. They also put is some injector cleaner since we have never done that since we have owned it.

Total bill for the new plugs, wires, inspection for tags and the injector cleaner was $236.00. I thought it was a bit steep but since it is a pain to get to the plugs and I have no way of getting the car up high enough to put the plugs in myself I was satisfied.
:hurray: