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Get to a parts store and ask them to pull codes. With or without a check engine light, look for codes. Then report what you find so people can help you better.
In absence of any other information, I’d look for a fuel problem first. I believe your Escape is new enough that it would have a fuel pump driver module. They get mounted under the car on or near a crossmember and then they suffer the elements until the aluminum housing corrodes. Once that housing breaks open, then the circuit board gets corroded next. They can and do operate/fail intermittently like this. If yours has one, it’ll be on the drivers side and just behind the EVAP canister and hardware, IIRC.
To a degree, this sounds like a false lean problem to me. Can you look at any PID data with a scan tool at all? I’d want to look at fuel trims and O2 sensor data first and then maybe MAF/MAP data later. If you want to try it on a shot gun diagnostic, just unplug the bank 1 pre cat O2 sensor and see if it runs better.
I found a wiring diagram that I don’t know if I can trust. It does point out a transmission range sensor in it though. I’m wondering if the range sensor isn’t sending out a voltage when it should. If the PCM thinks it’s in park, it makes sense why shift solenoids aren’t grounding.
Any time you see arcing on the outside like that, just replace it. Then recheck the coil wire for more arcing. Then replace the wires again if you really have to.
If you can help it, probe directly at the crank sensor if or as needed. If you see the same traces at either end of a circuit, you’ll at least be able to rule out some wiring faults. It would probably be a good idea to get down there and make sure the CKP is seated all the way into the timing cover anyway.
Three wires makes yours a hall effect. If it was a PM signal generator, you’d only have two wires. If you’ve still got that scope handy, can you scope all three wires simultaneously? It would be interesting to see how the power and ground is behaving at the same time.
I just had another thought. Did you probe directly at the crank sensor or were you at the PCM end of the signal wire?
I was lucky I could find these still laying around. They’re from my 98 and I have similar traces somewhere from my old 99 Blazer. The first one is a correlation between the cam and crank sensor. The second is a standalone of the crank sensor signal circuit. I can’t explain it, but the three little blips on the cam sensor trace is normal. I used the Blazer as a known good to compare against my S10.
Yours looks like an AC pattern on your scope. I think your engine should be the same as mine in that it would have a hall effect crank and cam sensor. Did you have three wires or two wires at your crank sensor?
Just type 98 accord timing belt replacement into YouTube’s search bar and you’ll find a few videos for it.
I did come up with one thought about a fuel problem. The poppet nozzles clog up often enough on the spider injectors. Before I refitted to the MPI from the original CSFI, I tested fuel pressure drops on my injectors and two of them were plugged solid. I actually used a high pressure nitrogen pump to blast out all my poppets and I probably didn’t need to change my spider assembly for it. You may just need to run some fuel injector cleaner in a couple tanks or go to a shop that can run your engine on a motor-vac system to flush the poppets. Keep this in mind though only for after you can rule out something in the ignition system.
If the plugs are worn worse than you thought or the gaps are too wide, they can cause random misfires anywhere and everywhere. Make sure you’ve got the right plugs in there too. It’s always been my understanding that they should be iridium plugs (AC Delco 41-993 or 19256067), but I’ve also been told on occasion they should be platinum plugs. I’ve been running the iridium plugs without issue.
Now that I’m thinking about it, coils are known to be a little on the weak side for our engines. You can get an inline spark tester and dial it out to 30 or40kV and attach it to any plug wire you like. If you have a nice blue/white spark at that high a kV, you can probably rule out the coil as a potential problem.
You likely won’t need to worry about the ignition module. The fact that the truck is running kinda dictates that it’s fine. Ideally, you’d want an oscilloscope to test the ignition module anyway. It’s the only way for you to see how the primary coil is firing.
I’m not inclined to worry about that fuel pressure as you are. Your fuel trims you mentioned earlier suggest fuel isn’t a problem.
Help me out a bit. You said it’s difficult to feel the misfires at cruising and higher RPM. Is the misfiring worse at idle?
Yes you should use RTV on the corners and there’s a good chance that the valve cover kit will include a small tube of RTV in the packaging. A FelPro set likely will, but I can’t say for sure a Victor Reinz gasket set would. If it’s included in the kit, just use that.
You caught it fast enough that you’ll probably be fine. Just monitor your oil as I’m sure you already have until your next oil change. If you have any concerns about the oil in there now, just change it out when you can and move on with life.
If a coil spring is bent, it’s shot. There’s no saving it. You just replace it. The strut should just be replaced with it too.
The cam retard offset is a different PID than the ignition advance. Ignition advance is variable while the cam retard offset is generally going to be a constant value within a couple degrees. If you don’t have access to that PID, just move on. If you’re committed to pulling the distributor, get your timing marks set up appropriately before you pull the distributor.
I had trouble with my distributor when installing a new aluminum housed unit. The rotor just wouldn’t line up with the timing mark on the distributor housing. (It’s a non adjustable distributor so I’d think this mattered.) It always looked to be at least one tooth off in either direction of the timing mark and I couldn’t do anything about it. Somewhere in some service info, it said that there could be some deviation in alignment so I ran it as is. It ran without issue for 6000 miles. Then I developed misfire problems and resolved them for another 1500, and then I kept having repeatable symptoms with more than one cause after that and I gave up after a while and lived with the misfire. My truck broke down in March and I was forced to deal with it. That’s when I learned about that cam retard offset PID. I was pretty far out compared to the recommended spec posted on Identifix. I notched the clamp on my distributor to make it adjustable and just zeroed the offset and my truck has been running surprisingly well since.
If you can feel your misfires reasonably easy while cruising, check to see if they go away under wide open throttle. @ WOT, the computer will put enough advance on the timing that the misfires can stop. That’ll also serve as an indicator that there is indeed a problem in the distributor. Looking at my own distributors that sat in my engine, I can tell you that the gears do get eaten up and I hear bushing wear in the housing shaft is also rampant.
One other thing, if you want to try and eliminate the MAF as a suspect, you should be able to run the engine with the MAF disconnected entirely. If misfires go away, so does the old MAF.
Hopefully, this will narrow down your problem source. Good luck.
I couldn’t believe it would be a hard part to find until I looked myself. The closest I was able to find was on eBay. Go to eBay yourself and look up Tremec T56 shift lug. It looks to be the same, but I can’t guarantee anything. Maybe the seller knows if his lugs are interchangeable between the T5 and a T56. That’s as close as I can get for the time being.