Can a 91 Geo Metro go 75mph on 2 cylinders?

I've had this car for about a year (15K of 129K) and its always ran about the same. Seems like it has a miss at idle, little rough. Lately Sometimes Very rough, thats the problem :^( Takes alot to get it going smooth but cruises nice on freeway. Great car, and mileage but it wants to stall now :^( Tried new plugs, cables, distributor cap. Pretty much same. Next is fuel filter, PCV valve.

Wheres the PCV valve ?

Strange thing is I can pull the far right plug wire and it runs the same??? Whats the firing order on this car ?

I'll be trying ALOT of carbarator cleaner tomorrow to try and clean things up and find leaks, got 3 cans at the .99 store today :^)

Any help ? Thanks, John

John,
Follow the vacuum type hose on the front of the air cleaner housing. It has a takeoff to the value cover, but continues on downward to the PCV valve which is held in place by two small screws. Not very big.

Firing order is 1-3-2 with a counterclockwise rotation of the distributor.

you might want to do a compression check on it. You could have a burnt valve. Mine did about the same thing.

How long can it run like this, seems to get me around OK.

Wheres the fuel filter?

you might want to do a compression check on it. You could have a burnt valve. Mine did about the same thing.

fuel filter is underneath the drivers side just in front of the rear wheel the trick is to remove the mount bracket and replace the filter then bolt the whole thing back in

I puulled the far right plug ( is this #2 ? ) and it had a BAD buildup of white stuff. Whats the problem ? Not firing, timing ? Other plugs seem OK.

white stuff... Could be corrosion from no spark, antifreeze, or burning with no compression. Lie the spark plug wire on the block, and make sure a spark jumps from the end of the wire, to the block while the engine is running. DON'T HOLD THE WIRE, you'll get a niiiice zap ;). Also, run a compression checker on that cylinder. It may be a blown headgasket.

mine ran for quite a while till I figured out I had a bad valve. Only problem was by the time I did something about it I had 2 bad valves. It would hardly start.

OK, I did the PCV valve tonight. Not much better, everything makes it run a little better but it will still ocasionally try to idle on about 2 cylinders, chug, chug, chug... then it will go back to normal. Is this a sticking valve? Could the coil be going bad?

Tomorrow I'll probably pull and clean the EGR valve and see if that helps. Still have the fuel filter to put on.

Thanks to everyone for the help.

You should go for plug wires, plugs, cap, and rotor while you're at it. That could very well be your problem.

this sounds like a bad head gasket to me. the white on one spark plug would give this away possibly. it could be that the gasket is only bad on the #3 cylender and antifreeze is entering the engine. are you loosing antifreeze or having high engine temps?

you could also look for a rise in the coolant system pressure as the compression charge enters through the head gasked breech....